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UNSTORIED 
IN  HISTORY 


UNSTORIED 

HISTORY 


PORTRAITS  OF  SOME  FAMOUS  WOMEN 
OF  THE  16th,  17th,  AND  18th  CENTURIES 


By 

GABRIELLE  FESTING 

Author  of  “John  Hookham  Frere  and  his  Friends" 


Samples  of  womankind;  but  here  they  be" 

— The  Antiquary 


London : 

JAMES  NISBET  &  CO.,  LIMITED 
21,  Berners  Street 
1901 


PRINTED  BY 

H  AZELL,  WATSON,  AND  VINEY,  LD. 
LONDON  AND  AYLESBURY. 


To  H.  S. 


PREFACE. 


THE  material  for  these  sketches  has  been  drawn 
from  many  different  sources.  No  statement 
has  been  made  without  foundation,  although  it  has 
seemed  inadvisable  to  encumber  every  page  with 
footnotes  giving  the  authorities. 

The  Reports  of  the  Historical  Manuscripts  Com¬ 
mission  were  the  chief  sources  for  Lady  Bridget 
Manners’  love-story,  and  for  the  ladies  of  the 
Restoration  in  IV.  (Report  XII.,  Appendix  4,  and 
Report  XII.,  Appendix  5,  and  Appendix  9). 

Brilliana  Harley’s  letters  to  her  son  Edward  have 
been  printed  by  the  Camden  Society  ;  other  letters, 
addressed  for  the  most  part  to  her  husband,  are  to 
be  found  among  the  mass  of  Harley  correspondence 
in  the  possession  of  the  Duke  of  Portland,  published 
by  the  Historical  Manuscripts  Commission  (Report 
XIV.,  Appendix  2). 

Lloyd’s  Memoirs  of  Sufferers  for  King  CJiarles  /., 
the  Mcrcurius  Rusticus,  and  Eliot  Warburton’s  Prince 
Rupert  and  the  Cavaliers  were  my  authorities  for 
Lady  Arundcll  of  Wardour  ;  the  story  of  Lady 

vii 


PREFACE. 


viii 

Savile’s  defence  of  Sheffield  Castle  is  to  be  found 
in  Miss  Foxcroft’s  Life  of  George  Savile,  Marquis  of 
Halifax.  The  Mercurius  Rusticus  gives  the  best 
account  of  the  siege  of  Corfe  Castle,  and  additional 
touches  are  supplied  by  the  Mercurius  Aulicus ,  and 
by  Lloyd,  whose  memoir  of  Sir  John  Bankes  is 
written  with  great  respect  and  sympathy ;  Hutchins’ 
Dorset  (third  edition,  edited  and  revised  by  William 
Shipp  and  J.  W.  Hodson),  Lysons’  Middlesex ,  and 
other  county  histories  have  been  consulted,  as  well 
as  a  most  interesting  little  book,  The  Story  of  Corfe 
Castle ,  by  the  Right  Hon.  G.  Bankes,  which  contains 
most  of  what  is  known  of  Brave  Dame  Mary.  Sir 
Jonah  Barrington  is  entirely  responsible  for  the 
adventures  of  his  great-aunt,  Elizabeth  Fitzgerald, 
of  Castle  Moret. 

For  the  earlier  years  of  Governor  Pitt’s  stormy 
life,  and  the  story  of  his  great  diamond,  Sir  Henry 
Yule’s  notes  to  The  Diary  of  William  Hedges 
(Hakluyt  Society)  have  been  the  chief  source  ;  the 
bulk  of  his  correspondence  from  about  1700  is 
to  be  found  in  Report  XIII.,  Appendix  3,  of  the 
Historical  Manuscripts  Commission.  Lady  Russell, 
in  her  recently  published  work  on  Swallowfield  and 
its  Owners ,  has  evidently  drawn  from  the  same 
sources,  but  her  estimate  of  Pitt  is  less  favourable 
than  that  which  is  here  offered  to  the  reader.  Mrs. 
F.  Penny’s  interesting  history  of  Fort  St.  George 
gives  many  curious  details  of  the  life  led  by  the 
members  of  the  East  India  Company  in  Madras. 


PREFACE. 


IX 


For  the  letters  and  other  MSS.  of  the  two 
Ellenor  Freres  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of 
Miss  A.  and  Miss  S.  Frere,  who  allowed  me  access 
to  their  store  of  family  papers.  The  greater  part 
of  the  history  of  the  elder  lady  appeared  in  Temple 
Bar  Magazine  for  June,  1900,  under  the  title  of 
“  A  Spinster  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,”  and  is 
here  reproduced  by  kind  permission  of  the  editor. 

A  few  sentences  of  II.  and  V.  appeared  in  The 
Pilot ,  in  two  articles  entitled  “  A  Puritan  Heroine  ” 
and  “  The  Founder  of  a  Family.” 

In  quoting  from  letters  I  have  reluctantly  been 
obliged  to  modernise  the  spelling.  Although  this 
detracts  to  a  great  extent  from  the  charm  of  the 
originals,  in  many  cases  a  literal  reproduction  would 
have  been  unintelligible  to  the  ordinary  reader. 
For  instance,  one  sentence  written  by  Lady  Bridget 
Manners  to  her  mother  runs  as  follows : — “  She 
sath  she  wold  have  my  chamber  fyne  when  I  wear 
at  London,  and  if  it  pleas  your  Ladyship  to  send 
me  such  things,  the  shall  by  the  grace  of  God  be 
very  well  loaket  too.”  A  hundred  years  later  Lady 
Campden  writes  to  her  daughter,  Lady  Roos :  “  The 
Queene  is  saye  to  be  displeased  with  her  Treasery, 
my  Lord  Claringdone,  who  has  as  yet  past  noe 
accounts  to  the  Queene  of  her  revenue  ;  with  which 
she  is  much  dissatisfied,  and  the  Queene  has  pubglety 
touke  notes  of  it  to  my  Lady  Claringdone  pubglety 
at  Corte.”  Some  portions  of  Lady  Harley’s  beautiful 
letters  to  her  son  are  quite  incomprehensible  until 


PREFACE. 


x 

they  have  been  pronounced,  syllable  by  syllable 
and  transliterated.  The  spelling  of  the  two  Ellenor 
Freres  has,  however,  been  left  unchanged,  as  it 
approached  sufficiently  near  to  modern  standards. 

I  have  to  thank  Mrs.  Lowe,  of  Gosfield  Hall,  for 
her  assistance,  and  also  Miss  L.  M.  Festing. 

To  the  unwearying  patience  and  readiness  to 
give  help  of  the  officials  of  the  London  Library  I 
owe  many  grateful  acknowledgments. 

If  it  be  permissible,  I  should  also  like  to  thank 
those  many  unknown  friends  —  reviewers  and 
others — whose  kindly  welcome  of  John  Hookham 
Frere  and  His  Friends  gave  so  much  pleasure  and 
encouragement  to  the  author. 


GABRIELLE  FESTING. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PREFACE . Vii 

INTRODUCTION  ......  I 

I.  A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER . 5 

II.  A  FAITHFUL  WIFE  ......  37 

III.  SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES . 91 

IV.  A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION  .  .  -133 

V.  AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE . 189 

VI.  A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL  OF  THE 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  .....  294 

CONCLUSION . 305 


xi 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


INTRODUCTION. 


HERE  is  a  certain  indefinable  charm  in  turning 


-L  over  a  packet  of  old  letters.  The  writers 
may  have  been  quite  unknown  to  us,  they  may 
have  been  laid  in  their  graves  long  before  we  were 
born  ;  yet  as  we  read  their  story — written,  of  course, 
without  a  thought  of  publication,  only  for  one  pair 
of  eyes  to  read — they  take  vitality  and  flesh  and 
blood,  and  become  as  human  as  ourselves.  A  singer 
of  our  own  day  has  shown  the  strange  irony  of 
fate,  that  a  fragile  toy  of  chicken-skin  and  ivory 
should  survive  the  wear  of  years,  the  dangers  of 
several  revolutions,  and  remain  unblemished,  while 
the  beautiful,  imperious  hand  that  wielded  it  has 
long  ago  mouldered  into  dust. 


But  where  is  the  Pompadour? — 
This  was  the  Pompadour’s  fan  ! 


So  the  sheets  of  paper  on  which  men  and  women 
recorded  their  hopes  and  their  fears,  their  joys 


i 


2 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


and  their  sorrows,  their  vanities  and  their  amuse¬ 
ments,  may  still  be  handled  and  touched  ;  but 
the  writers  have  vanished  behind  the  curtain. 
Yet,  after  all,  are  they  really  gone  away  from 
us  ?  As  we  turn  over  the  rustling  leaves  it  seems 
as  though  some  subtle  essence  of  their  spirit  had 
been  left  behind.  As  we  grow  more  and  more 
absorbed  in  the  record  of  the  thousand  and  one 
trivialities  that  do  far  more  to  make  up  human  life 
than  the  dramatic  events  which  occasionally  disturb 
the  peace  of  some  of  us,  we  begin  to  feel  that  the 
writers  are  the  warm,  living  realities,  and  we  the 
cold,  pale  shadows.  She  paid  three  hundred  pounds 
for  her  grand  dress  to  wear  at  the  ball  given  in 
honour  of  a  royal  birthday,  and  all  the  other  ladies 
were  jealous  of  her ; — can  it  be  that  the  little  feet 
that  trod  their  measure  so  proudly  in  sight  of  the 
whole  Court  are  now  stiff  and  stark,  pointing  at 
the  daisies  ?  He  was  hurrying  back  to  those  who 
loved  him,  saved  from  all  the  dangers  of  battle  and 
siege  ; — did  he  really  fall  victim  to  that  deadly  fever 
by  the  way,  and  was  the  little  sister  who  waited 
his  return  among  the  English  meadows  the  stately, 
white-haired  lady  who  is  one  of  the  dim  memories 
of  our  own  childhood  ? 

Except  in  rare  cases  we  never  learn  to  know  our 
acquaintance  ;  day  by  day  we  go  in  and  out  among 
them,  and  are  no  nearer  to  true  sympathy  and 
understanding  at  the  end  of  seven  years  than  we 
were  in  the  beginning.  But  a  few  hours  spent 


INTRODUCTION. 


3 


among  “  dead  letters  ”  make  us  feel  as  if  the  writers 
were  our  own  friends.  Removed  from  us  in  point 
of  time  by,  it  may  be,  several  centuries,  they  are 
so  near  in  other  ways  that,  could  we  meet  them 
to-morrow,  we  should  hail  them  with  the  confidence 
of  long  intimacy,  and  ask  them  of  their  concerns, 
or  else  hasten  to  pass  them  by,  because,  without 
having  seen  them,  we  know  them,  by  their  own 
showing,  to  be  disagreeable  companions. 

When  we  have  ourselves  been  allowed  access  to 
the  original  letters,  and  deciphered  their  contents 
with  much  labour  and  toil,  the  illusion  is  stronger  ; 
but  it  prevails  even  over  the  prosaic  exterior 
of  the  publications  of  the  Historical  Manuscripts 
Commission.  Those  heavy  volumes,  with  their 
close  type  and  yellow  paper  covers,  seem  the  in¬ 
carnation  of  all  that  is  dull  and  matter-of-fact. 
Once  examined,  they  prove  to  be  a  gold-mine,  or  a 
quarry  whence  any  one  who  chooses  may  come  and 
dig  his  materials.  You  may  turn  from  the  formal 
correspondence  of  statesmen,  at  a  time  when  the 
fate  of  Europe  hung  trembling  in  the  balance,  to 
echoes  of  fashionable  gossip,  rumours  of  Court 
scandals.  If  you  have  no  wish  to  read  of  wars 
and  battles,  you  have  but  to  take  another  volume, 
and  find  a  love-story  as  romantic  as  any  in  a 
novel.  There  is  abundance  to  suit  all  tastes  ;  but 
it  is  in  the  raw  state,  and  you  must  dig  it  out, 
cut  and  polish  it  for  yourself. 


I. 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER. 

Elizabeth,  Countess  of  Rutland 
(d.  1595). 

,ady  Bridget  Manners  (Lady  Bridget  Tyrwhitt) 
(d.  1604). 


5 


I. 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER. 

SOME  of  the  stories  revealed  to  us  in  these  Reports 
are  tantalisingly  incomplete ;  a  momentary 
glimpse,  a  few  hints,  a  chance  allusion,  and  then  no 
more,  however  we  may  search.  At  other  times  we 
are  able  to  trace  the  whole  life  of  some  personage 
from  its  beginning  to  its  end,  without  turning  to 
any  other  source  of  information.  The  records 
of  the  Manners  family  preserved  at  Belvoir  are 
singularly  full  and  singularly  interesting.  From 
the  days  of  the  first  Earl  of  Rutland — a  man  of 
rare  discretion  and  ability,  who  was  the  adviser 
of  Anne  of  Cleves  during  her  brief  marriage  with 
Henry  VIII.,  and  yet  contrived  to  keep  his  head  on 
his  shoulders — we  can  follow  the  different  members 
of  his  family  through  their  varying  fortunes  until 
some  time  after  the  accession  of  James  I.  Then 
there  is  a  break  ;  but  with  the  Restoration  we  may 
begin  again,  and  continue  well  into  the  reign  of 
George  III. 

Some  of  the  Earls  and  Dukes  of  Rutland  were 
involved  in  serious  affairs  of  State.  The  earl  who 


7 


8 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


under  Queen  Elizabeth  was  Lord  Warden  of  the 
Marches  and  Lord  President  of  the  North,  or  the 
duke  who  under  George  III.  was  Lord-Lieutenant 
of  Ireland,  must  have  enjoyed  varied  and  harassing 
experiences.  But  if  we  leave  the  tangled  web  of 
politics  to  historians,  and  look  for  something  of 
more  human  interest,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
a  more  curious  illustration  of  the  ways  of  those 
in  high  society  in  the  latter  years  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  than  the  love-story  of  Lady  Bridget 
Manners,  eldest  daughter  of  John,  fourth  Earl  of 
Rutland. 

In  April,  1587,  Earl  John  succeeded  his  brother 
Edward,  whose  only  child  was  a  daughter.  Although 
the  excessive  death-duties  of  our  own  time  did  not 
then  embitter  the  loss  of  a  relative,  yet  the  large 
sums  perforce  expended  upon  mourning  must  have 
crippled  the  fortunes  of  the  successors.  Black  cloth 
had  to  be  provided  for  the  family,  the  household, 
and  a  certain  number  of  persons  on  the  estate ;  a 
number  of  poor  folk  equal  to  the  years  of  the 
deceased’s  age  had  to  be  clothed  ;  friends  invited 
to  the  burial  expected  “  blacks  ”  for  themselves 
and  their  attendants  ;  open  house  was  kept  between 
the  day  of  the  death  and  the  day  of  the  funeral ; 
and  the  inside  of  the  church  was  veiled  in  black 
hangings.  The  new  earl’s  bill  to  a  woollen-draper 
on  this  occasion  amounted  to  .£898  8r.  6d. 

Thanks  to  the  late  earl’s  care,  the  estate  was  said 
to  be  in  better  condition  than  at  the  time  of  his 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER. 


9 


succession,  but  it  was  now  encumbered  with  the 
maintenance  of  two  countesses-dowager.  The  one 
was  Bridget,  widow  of  the  former  Lord  Warden  ; 
the  other,  Isabel,  was  the  widow  of  Earl  Edward 
and  daughter  of  Julyan,  Lady  Holcroft,  who  was 
a  redoubtable  termagant.  On  the  death  of  her 
husband,  Countess  Isabel  showed  herself  a  true 
daughter  of  her  mother  ;  her  first  proceeding  was 
“  to  take  the  Castle  and  new  stables  to  her  use, 
and  to  lock  all  the  doors.” 

Luckily  for  Earl  John,  he  had  friends  at  Court, 
Lord  Leicester  and  one  of  the  ladies-in-waiting, 
Mrs.  Mary  Ratcliff,  being  two  of  the  most  consider¬ 
able  ;  and  the  Countess  Isabel  received  only  “cold 
comfort”  when  she  appeared  to  submit  her  claims  to 
the  queen.  Lord  Rutland,  finding  his  star  in  the 
ascendant,  was  anxious  to  turn  the  tables  upon  his 
sister-in-law.  Her  only  daughter  was  a  ward  of 
the  Crown,  and  he  wrote  to  beg  the  queen  to  have 
a  care  of  her  bringing-up  and  marriage,  lest  “  this 
well-natured  child  ”  should  be  spoiled  “  for  want 
of  education  which  she  cannot  rightly  have  while 
she  remains  with  her  mother,  who  cannot  hide  the 
disposition  that  she  inherits  from  her  mother.”  This 
is  heredity  with  a  vengeance !  Lord  Rutland’s  real 
object  was  to  secure  the  wardship  for  himself ;  but 
Lord  Burghley  dissuaded  him  from  asking  for  it, 
assuring  him  that  under  the  circumstances  such  a 
request  would  have  a  bad  appearance,  and  would 
certainly  not  be  granted.  Lord  Burghley  had  the 


IO 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


best  of  all  possible  reasons  for  this  advice,  since  he 
meant  to  keep  the  wardship  in  his  own  hands,  and 
was  only  biding  his  time.  At  present  he  was 
by  way  of  being  the  earl’s  friend  ;  but  when  the 
earl  had  followed  his  brother  to  the  grave,  Lord 
Burghley  married  Earl  Edward’s  heiress  to  his 
own  son,  and  supported  the  Countess  Isabel  and 
Lady  Holcroft  in  their  exactions  upon  the  Rutland 
estates. 

Earl  John’s  brief  tenure  of  his  new  dignity  was 
harassed  by  perpetual  litigation  and  trivial  disputes 
over  tithes,  jewels,  plate,  wardships,  and  other  property. 
In  spite  of  his  brother’s  reputed  good  management, 
there  were  debts  on  all  sides,  and  in  the  midst  of 
his  troubles  came  a  summons  for  himself  and  his 
countess  to  attend  the  funeral  of  the  Queen  of 
Scots,  apparelled  each  in  twenty  yards  of  black 
material,  and  attended  by  three  gentlemen,  three 
gentlewomen,  and  sixteen  yeomen,  also  clad  in 
mourning.  The  unsettled  state  of  the  country  and 
the  musters  ordered  by  the  queen,  together  with 
certain  feuds  among  the  Nottinghamshire  gentlemen, 
threw  many  additional  cares  on  the  earl’s  shoulders, 
and  it  was  not  wonderful  that  he  broke  down  under 
the  load  of  his  troubles,  public  and  private.  In 
Eebruary,  1588,  Lord  Leicester  sent  him  a  physician, 
with  ‘many  kind  expressions  of  grief  at  his  illness. 
Thomas  Screven,  the  trusty  agent  of  several  suc¬ 
cessive  Earls  of  Rutland,  wrote  to  assure  the  dying 
man  that  the  Lord  High  Steward  had  promised 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  n 

to  befriend  his  young  son.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
this  letter,  dated  February  26th,  reached  Belvoir  in 
time  to  comfort  Earl  John’s  last  moments,  for  on 
March  2nd  the  Earl  of  Leicester  and  Lord  Burghley 
had  consulted  over  “  the  will  of  the  late  Earl  of 
Rutland,”  and  were  writing  to  express  their  grief  at 
the  loss  of  “  so  toward  a  nobleman  for  the  service 
of  God,  the  Queen,  and  the  country.” 

Earl  John’s  eldest  son,  Roger,  was  a  student  at 
Queen’s  College,  Cambridge, — too  young  to  fight  his 
own  battles  against  the  harpies  who  seized  this 
opportunity  of  making  what  they  could  from  the 
estate  of  a  fatherless  boy.  He  had  a  powerful  pro¬ 
tector  in  Lord  Leicester,  who  had  been  accustomed 
to  write  to  the  late  earl  as  his  “son  ”  ;  but  he  lived 
far  away,  and  had  more  important  affairs  to  occupy 
him.  At  home  the  boy’s  chief  defenders  should 
have  been  his  father’s  uncles,  Roger  and  John 
Manners.  John,  by  reason  of  his  marriage  with 
Dorothy  Vernon,  the  heiress  of  Haddon,  was  a 
person  of  much  importance,  and  Roger  was  the 
oracle  to  whom  the  family  appealed  in  all  difficulties. 
Viewed  through  the  medium  of  these  letters,  Roger 
appears  as  selfish  and  worldly,  shrewd  indeed  in 
counsel,  but  with  too  much  readiness  to  avoid  every¬ 
thing  that  might  bring  him  into  trouble  or  disfavour 
with  the  ruling  powers.  He  and  his  brother  John, 
although  named  as  executors  in  the  late  earl’s  will, 
declined  to  act,  and  the  widowed  Countess  Elizabeth 
wrote  piteously  to  Lord  Leicester  and  Lord  Burghley 


12 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


to  complain  that  she,  “  a  weak  and  sickly  woman,” 
was  unable  to  cope  with  the  business  single-handed. 
Her  condition  might  well  have  moved  to  pity.  From 
the  list  of  her  husband’s  funeral  expenses  it  can  be 
seen  that  black  was  provided  for  the  boy  earl,  his 
sister,  Lady  Bridget,  “  the  two  little  ladies,”  and 
“  the  three  young  gentlemen  ”  ;  and  her  youngest 
child  was  not  born  till  the  end  of  the  following 
October. 

Lord  Leicester  and  Lord  Burghley  acted  with 
remarkable  kindness  and  wisdom,  sending  orders 
that  the  funeral  expenses  were  to  be  lessened 
as  much  as  possible  by  hastening  the  burial  and 
reducing  the  number  of  persons  to  whom  mourn¬ 
ing  was  given.  They  set  a  good  example  by 
declining  to  accept  “  blacks  ”  for  themselves  or  for 
their  servants ;  but,  even  so,  over  seven  hundred 
yards  of  black  materials  had  to  be  sent  down  from 
London  by  Mr.  Screven,  who  complained  that  “  the 
rate  set  down  was  very  mean — meaner  than  has 
been  at  any  funeral  for  many  years.”  As  a  climax 
to  the  general  discomfort,  small-pox  broke  out  in 
the  Countess  Elizabeth’s  house  at  Nottingham, 
and  she  wrote  in  despair  to  the  Lord  Treasurer 
(Burghley)  to  ask  where  her  son  should  go.  Lord 
Burghley’s  reply  was  kindly  and  sensible.  He 
offered  any  help  he  could  give  to  the  lonely 
widow  (whose  brother  had  just  declined  to  be 
her  fellow-executor),  and  advised  that  the  young 
earl  should  return  to  Cambridge,  where  his  “  honest 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  13 


and  discreet  ”  tutor,  Dr.  Jegon,  could  be  trusted 
to  look  after  him. 

Some  of  Earl  Roger’s  letters  to  his  mother  are 
still  preserved,  and  bear  a  strong  resemblance  to 
those  written  by  schoolboys  of  this  century.  He 
wished  for  a  nag  to  ride  ;  but  when  one  was  provided 
by  his  mother  it  proved  lame  and  quite  useless.  He 
was  very  anxious  for  some  venison  from  Belvoir  to 
bestow  on  his  friends,  and  the  countess  sent  him 
down  a  buck,  which  her  son  pronounced  to  be 
“  naught,  every  bit.”  Finally,  in  a  letter  which  will 
touch  the  heart  of  every  mother  of  a  growing  boy, 
he  entreats  for  some  new  shirts,  “  for  I  have  very  few, 
and  those  I  have  be  so  little  that  I  cannot  get  them 
off  and  on.”  Countess  Elizabeth  was  then  hampered 
by  a  demand  for  her  to  pay  half  the  expenses  of  the 
commission  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  conflicting 
claims  on  the  Rutland  estates.  Lord  Burghley  had 
deserted  her  cause,  having  recently  married  his  son 
to  that  “  well-natured  child  ”  for  whose  education 
Earl  John  had  been  concerned.  There  is  no  record 
that  any  shirts  were  .sent  to  Cambridge,  and  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  in  the  midst  of  graver  cares  the 
poor  boy’s  wardrobe  was  forgotten. 

It  has  always  been  known  as  a  difficult  and 
thankless  task  to  transact  business  with  a  widow 
surrounded  by  a  large  family  of  children,  whether 
she  is  the  controller  of  a  great  estate  or  whether  she 
has  gone  without  a  fire  in  the  depth  of  winter 
in  order  to  purchase  the  rusty  crape  streamers  on 


i4 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


her  bonnet.  Of  all  widows  who  ever  tried  the 
patience  of  a  man  of  business,  Elizabeth,  Countess 
of  Rutland,  must  have  been  one  of  the  most  ex¬ 
asperating.  Helpless,  lymphatic,  irresolute,  it  needs 
little  effort  of  the  imagination  to  see  her  lying  on 
her  state  bed  hung  with  black,  or  sweeping  about  her 
rooms  in  all  the  trappings  of  woe,  and  replying  to 
every  application  with  a  protest  of  her  incapacity. 
Ill-health,  doubtless,  was  a  hindrance  to  her  activity; 
and  she  was  so  pressed  by  claims,  counter-claims, 
extortions,  and  exactions  that  she  was  obliged  to 
sell  her  plate  and  jewels.  Yet  other  women  have 
battled  against  sickness  and  poverty  for  the  sake 
of  their  children,  and  come  off  victorious.  The 
brute  instinct  that  makes  the  lioness  or  the  vixen 
fight  to  the  death  for  her  cub  was  strangely  deficient 
in  Lady  Rutland  ;  she  could  write  sentimentally  of 
her  “  poor  boy  ”  at  the  mercies  of  his  enemies,  Lady 
Holcroft  and  Countess  Isabel,  but  she  was  quite 
unsuccessful  in  providing  for  her  “poor  boy’s”  every¬ 
day  wants.  When  the  commission  summoned  her 
to  produce  certain  important  documents,  she  was 
perfectly  unable  to  say  whether  she  had  them  or 
not,  “  as  my  experience  of  reading  them  is  little, 
and  my  understanding  is  less”;  but  when  her  son, 
growing  to  man’s  estate,  wished  to  know  something 
of  his  own  affairs,  she  was  equally  unable  or  un¬ 
willing  to  explain  them.  When  on  rare  occasions 
she  resolved  upon  any  definite  action,  it  was  sure 
to  be  an  unwise  one  ;  and  when  disaster  inevitably 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  15 


followed,  she  was  the  first  to  protest  her  ignorance 
of  the  whole  matter  and  disclaim  any  responsibility. 
Sheltered  by  a  husband’s  care,  under  prosperous 
circumstances,  she  would  doubtless  have  passed  for 
a  sweet,  amiable  woman.  As  it  was,  she  was  a 
trial  to  all  who  had  to  do  with  her  while  she  lived, 
and  her  death  caused  little  regret.  One  of  harsher 
mould  and  more  grasping  disposition,  such  as  the 
Countess  Isabel,  would  have  emerged  from  the 
struggle  with  far  more  credit  to  herself  and  far 
more  advantage  to  her  family. 

Lady  Bridget,  Earl  John’s  eldest  daughter,  had 
been  old  enough  at  the  time  of  her  father’s  death 
to  be  allowed  eight  yards  of  black  cloth  for  her 
mourning-gown.  The  queen  had  once  expressed 
a  wish  to  have  the  girl  as  one  of  her  ladies.  A 
month  before  the  earl’s  death,  Margaret,  Countess  of 
Cumberland,  wrote  to  assure  him  that  her  majesty 
had  spoken  very  graciously  of  him,  and  asked  after 
my  Lady  Bridget,  and  remembered  her  promise. 

Whether  the  earl  felt  the  gratitude  that  he  was 
bound  to  express  is  more  than  doubtful.  Mrs.  Mary 
Ratcliff,  his  kinswoman,  had  probably  told  him  some¬ 
thing  of  the  inconveniences  of  her  life,  and  there  are 
letters  among  the  Manners  correspondence  which 
give  no  pleasing  picture  of  the  Court.  “  I  am  weary 
of  the  spite  of  the  Court,”  complains  Earl  Edward’s 
cousin,  Lady  Stafford,  during  his  absence  from 
London  ;  while  Mrs.  Eleanor  Bridges  sighs,  “  The 
Court  is  as  full  of  malice  and  spite  as  when  you  left 


1 6  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

it.”  In  point  of  morals,  Elizabeth’s  Court  was  held 
to  be  greatly  superior  to  that  of  her  contemporary 
and  rival,  Catherine  de  Medici,  while  those  who  had 
served  her  predecessor,  Queen  Mary,  considered  it 
to  have  deteriorated  woefully  since  that  day.  But 
a  queen’s  wish  was  not  to  be  flouted,  least  of  all 
by  one  who  had  a  suit  against  his  sister-in-law, 
and  Earl  John  cast  about  for  the  means  of  educating 
Lady  Bridget  for  her  future  responsibilities.  Finish¬ 
ing-schools  for  young  ladies  were  then  few  in 
number,  and  well-born  damsels  generally  completed 
their  education  by  being  received  into  some  great 
household,  where  they  learned  needlework,  music, 
household  management,  and  deportment,  with  the 
aid  of  the  “  pinches,  nips  and  bobs  ”  which  had 
been  such  conspicuous  factors  in  the  upbringing  of 
Lady  Jane  Grey,  and  a  sufficiency  of  blows  from 
the  long  handle  of  the  feather  fan  carried  by  noble 
matrons. 

Mr.  John  Manners  advised  sending  Lady  Bridget 
to  the  Countess  of  Bedford ;  but  before  anything 
could  be  settled  the  earl  died,  and  Lady  Bridget 
herself  was  seized  with  some  illness  from  which  her 
recovery  was  slow.  It  was  not  until  the  June  of 
1588  that  the  Countess  Elizabeth,  having  despatched 
her  son  to  Cambridge,  was  able  to  give  some 
attention  to  her  daughter’s  future.  Lady  Bedford 
was  still  willing  to  receive  Lady  Bridget  into  her 
household,  and  the  mother  resigned  all  authority 
over  her  child  in  a  letter  which  is  almost  exasperating 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  17 


in  its  passive  helplessness.  Lady  Rutland  bewailed 
the  insufficiency  of  the  sum  left  by  her  husband  for 
his  daughter’s  maintenance,  assured  Lady  Bedford 
of  the  girl’s  docility,  and  lamented  that  her  education 
had  been  “  barren  hitherto,”  and  that  her  one  accom¬ 
plishment —  playing  on  the  lute — had  been  almost 
forgotten  “by  her  late  discontinuance” — probably  on 
account  of  her  illness.  Lady  Bedford  was  requested 
to  find  a  waiting-woman  for  Lady  Bridget,  as  the 
countess  was  quite  unable  to  do  so,  and  to  super¬ 
intend  the  spending  of  her  year’s  annuity,  which 
had  been  given  into  her  hands. 

There  is  no  saying  how  Lady  Bridget  relished 
the  change  from  her  mother’s  rule  to  that  of  Lady 
Bedford.  Some  of  her  letters— worse  spelled  than 
even  those  of  her  brother — still  remain  ;  but  they 
may  have  been  censored  by  Lady  Bedford,  who 
generally  took  the  opportunity  to  send  a  message 
to  Lady  Rutland.  Lady  Bridget  dutifully  congra¬ 
tulates  her  mother  on  her  safe  delivery  in  October, 
and  adds  that  Lady  Bedford  continues  her  favour 
towards  herself.  A  little  later,  like  girls  of  modern 
days,  she  is  seized  with  a  desire  to  beautify  her  room, 
of  which  her  guardian  approves.  “  My  Lady  of 
Bedford  did  bid  me  send  to  your  Ladyship  for  a 
bed  and  for  hangings  for  my  chamber  and  a  little 
plate  to  set  off  my  cupboard.  She  saith  she  would 
have  my  chamber  fine  when  I  were  at  London,  and 
if  it  please  your  Ladyship  to  send  me  such  things, 
they  shall  by  the  grace  of  God  be  very  well  looked 


2 


1 8  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

to.  She  saith  she  hath  a  great  care  of  me,  as 
Mr.  Boston  can  tell  you.” 

Poor  Lady  Rutland,  barely  recovered  from  her 
confinement  and  in  the  thick  of  her  disputes 
with  the  commission,  wrote  somewhat  tartly  to  Mr. 
Screven  to  the  effect  that  “she  would  have  imagined 
that  so  honourably  minded  a  lady  as  the  Countess 
of  Bedford  would  furnish  Lady  Bridget’s  room  in 
her  house.”  Then  softening  a  little,  she  added  that 
she  would  willingly  send  anything  that  was  required 
if  she  knew  the  size  of  her  daughter’s  room.  She 
was  much  disquieted  by  hearing  through  Mr.  Boston 
that  Lady  Bedford  intended  “  to  put  Lady  Bridget 
to  the  Queen.”  “  I  hope  this  will  not  as  yet  fall  so, 
for  Bridget  has  no  acquaintance  in  that  place,  and 
is  therefore  most  unfit  for  it.” 

While  Lady  Bridget’s  fate  was  undecided,  her 
brother,  the  earl,  came  up  to  London,  and  stayed, 
as  did  most  of  his  family,  at  the  Savoy.  His  friends, 
as  he  wrote  to  his  mother,  showed  him  “  many  com¬ 
fortable  encouragements.”  The  queen,  “  using  him 
very  graciously  ”  (which,  to  judge  from  Elizabeth’s 
ordinary  mode  of  receiving  a  personable  youth,  may 
mean  patting  his  cheek  or  tickling  his  neck),  said 
she  knew  his  father  for  an  honest  man,  and  for  his 
mother,  “  although  she  knew  her  not,  she  had  heard 
much  good  of  her.”  The  sight  of  the  boy  earl  may 
have  reminded  the  queen  of  her  promise,  for  in 
July,  1589,  Lady  Rutland  writes  to  Lady  Bedford 
that  she  understands  that  Bridget  is  to  be  received 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER. 


!9 


into  the  queen’s  service.  Another  lady  had  been 
so  recently  admitted  that  Lady  Rutland  owns  that 
she  had  not  expected  the  honour  for  her  daughter. 
“But  as  it  is  the  Queen’s  pleasure,  I  hope  she  will 
behave  herself  as  shall  be  pleasing,”  wrote  the 
mother  pathetically.  “  I  hope  those  that  are  wise 
will  remember  the  estate  of  a  fatherless  maid,  and 
that  you  will  give  her  your  advice  as  to  what  is 
most  needful  for  her,  because  I  myself  am  altogether 
inexperienced  in  the  fashions  of  the  Court.” 

Lady  Bridget  did  not  go  altogether  unprotected 
into  a  new  world.  She  was  accompanied  by  Mrs. 
Mary  Harding,  who  seems  to  have  been  something 
between  a  friend  and  an  attendant — perhaps  a  poor 
relation — who  wrote  bulletins  of  her  health  and 
behaviour  to  Lady  Rutland.  Mrs.  Mary  Ratcliff 
was  kindness  itself,  and  so  was  Lady  Talbot,  with 
whom  Lady  Bridget  was  already  on  friendly  terms. 
As  Lord  Burghley  had  lately  penned  a  letter  of 
good  advice  to  young  Lord  Rutland,  Mr.  Roger 
Manners  now  followed  suit  with  various  counsels 
addressed  to  “  his  niece,  Lady  Bridget  Manners, 
of  Her  Majesty’s  Privy  Chamber.”  After  recom¬ 
mending  daily  prayer  and  other  elementary  rules 
of  good  conduct,  he  advised  generally  “  that  you 
be  no  meddler  in  the  causes  of  others.  That  you 
use  much  silence,  for  that  becometh  maids,  specially 
of  your  calling.  That  your  speech  and  endeavours 
ever  tend  to  the  good  of  all  and  to  the  hurt  of 
none.”  To  all  this  the  Earl  of  Rutland  added  a 


20 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


sententious  postscript  to  the  effect  that  “  My  unde 
has  given  you  good  advice  and  we  will  pray  that 
you  may  perform  it.” 

To  judge  from  the  verdict  of  their  contemporaries, 
Elizabeth’s  ladies  would  have  been  the  better  for 
heeding  these  precepts.  Experienced  courtiers,  such 
as  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  compared  them  to  witches 
who  could  do  much  harm  and  no  good.  Veteran 
diplomatists  like  Sir  Francis  Knollys  complained 
that  “their  heying  and  frisking”  at  nights  dis¬ 
turbed  the  slumbers  of  all  quartered  near  them — 
an  inconvenience  which  he  once  strove  to  remedy 
by  invading  their  dormitory  and  marching  up  and 
down  declaiming  Latin  verses  in  his  nightshirt 
and  spectacles. 

Lady  Bridget  seems  to  have  inherited  much  ot 
her  family’s  tact  and  shrewdness  in  escaping  the 
pitfalls  of  a  Court,  for  she  was  soon,  as  Mrs.  Harding 
reported,  on  the  best  possible  terms  with  the  queen 
and  with  the  other  ladies  also.  Mary  Harding  was 
under  no  illusions  as  to  the  nature  of  her  gilded 
servitude.  “The  place  will  be  greatly  chargeable  to 
her,  and  something  more  painfuller  than  any  would 
judge.  And  so  will  it  be  to  me  also,  for  that  the 
late  watchings  and  sittings  up  are  tedious ;  yet,  God 
be  thanked,  she  liketh  very  well,  and  is  very  health¬ 
ful.1’  The  delicate  girl,  who  had  probably  grown 
very  fast  during  her  illness,  had  contracted  a  habit 
of  stooping,  greatly  to  her  mother’s  concern.  Mary 
Harding  was  able  to  certify  that  it  was  now  “  very 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  21 

little  or  none  at  all,”  and  at  Lady  Rutland’s  request 
promised  to  “  be  ready  to  put  her  in  mind  to  forbear 
the  same.”  There  is  something  pathetic  in  the  last 
sentence  of  Mrs.  Harding’s  letter  which  tells  the 
Countess  Elizabeth  that  her  daughter  “is  well  liked 
of  all,  and  endeavoureth  herself  to  be  thankful, 
and  to  follow  the  courtly  order  in  all  points.” 

It  was  well  if  Lady  Rutland  could  take  any  comfort 
in  her  daughter’s  favourable  reception  at  Court,  for 
she  must  have  been  sorely  pinched  to  supply  Lady 
Bridget’s  outfit.  She  wrote  to  Lady  Bedford  that 
she  would  send  £200  to  provide  all  necessaries. 
The  relative  value  of  money  in  those  days  and  in 
these  is  an  intricate  question,  but  according  to  one 
reckoning  the  £200  must  have  been  equivalent  to 
more  than  £1,000  of  our  money.  Nor  was  this  the 
only  expense  forced  upon  the  unlucky  countess,  who 
out  of  her  slender  means  was  obliged  to  pay  no  less 
than  £174  8j\  6d.  in  New  Year’s  gifts  to  various 
personages  at  Court.  Mrs.  Ratcliff  had  £15;  Lady 
Talbot,  £13  6s.  Sd.  The  name  of  Lady  Dorothy 
Stafford,  whom  Mrs.  Harding  declared  to  have  been 
“  more  like  a  mother  than  a  stranger  ”  to  Lady 
Bridget,  does  not  appear.  All  this  is  sufficiently 
curious  ;  but  some  of  the  other  items  take  away 
the  breath  of  a  modern  reader  : 


For  the  Queen,  in  gold  . 

.  £>° 

For  the  Lord  Chancellor . 

.  £20 

For  the  Lord  Treasurer  . 

.  £^3° 

For  the  two  Chief  Justices 

.  £><>• 

22 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


The  utmost  that  can  be  said  is  that  these 
gifts  were  a  tribute  regularly  exacted  and  openly 
delivered,  not  a  bribe  pouched  by  stealth.  Earl 
Edward  had  been  in  the  habit  of  offering  £ 20  as 
a  New  Year’s  gift  from  himself  and  his  wife  to  the 
queen,  and  a  gold  cup  of  the  value  of  £20  to  the 
Lord  Treasurer,  who  “very  gratefully”  accepted  it; 
Earl  John  had  perforce  followed  this  example  in 
the  one  year  of  his  tenure  of  the  estate. 

After  this  Lady  Rutland  seems  to  have  enjoyed 
an  interval  of  comparative  peace.  Her  son  paid 
occasional  visits  to  Belvoir  during  the  hunting-season, 
with  Lord  Burghley’s  approval.  He  alludes  to  a 
“long  illness”  and  to  an  injury  to  his  arm  which 
gave  his  friends  some  anxiety  ;  but  his  deportment 
seems  to  have  been  the  chief  object  of  their  care. 
Old  Roger  Manners,  always  prodigal  of  advice  which 
cost  him  nothing,  wrote  letters  worthy  of  Polonius 
himself  to  the  countess  on  this  matter.  “  They 
say  it  is  a  thankless  office  to  tell  youth  of  their 
faults,  yet  it  is  the  office  of  their  best  friends.  If 
therefore  your  Ladyship  will  admonish  my  Lord  of 
Rutland  and  those  about  him  to  have  care  of  his 
manners,  that  his  behaviour  be  civil,  and  to  fashion 
his  speech  and  entertainment  according  to  the 
person  and  his  calling,  it  were  a  wonderful  comfort 
to  his  friends,  and  [would]  win  his  Lordship  great 
good  opinion  of  the  world.  I  have  already  said 
enough  therein.”  Notwithstanding  this  declaration, 
Mr.  Manners  returned  to  the  subject  three  weeks 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  23 


later,  and  the  countess  evidently  passed  on  his 
admonitions  to  the  delinquent,  who  meekly  rejoined  : 
“  I  give  your  Ladyship  humble  thanks  for  your 
honourable  direction  in  your  letters  for  my  good. 
I  do  assure  your  Ladyship  that  the  carriage  of 
myself  both  towards  God  and  my  book,  my 
comeliness  in  diet  and  gesture,  shall  be  such  as 
your  Ladyship  shall  hear  and  like  well  of.” 

Nearly  three  years  had  passed  since  Lady  Bridget 
was  sworn  of  her  majesty’s  privy  chamber,  and 
she  still  retained  the  queen’s  favour.  Mary  Harding, 
who  kept  to  her  resolution  of  not  leaving  her 
mistress,  reported  that  she  was  always  required  to 
carve  for  the  queen,  and  was  “  no  way  at  com¬ 
mandment  but  by  Her  Majesty.”  For  all  this, 
Mrs.  Harding  was  ill-content  ;  it  was  time  for  Lady 
Bridget  to  be  married,  and  an  opportunity  seemed 
ready  to  hand.  “  My  Lord  of  Northumberland  ” 
had  been  paying  his  addresses  to  “  my  Lady  Vere,” 
who  would  have  none  of  him.  Mrs.  Harding  was 
of  opinion  that  he  might  be  secured  for  Lady  Bridget 
with  proper  assistance,  “  for  your  honour  doth 
know  that  such  great  matters  must  have  means.” 
The  young  lady’s  uncle  was  then  in  London,  and 
would  have  been  a  natural  person  to  be  consulted, 
but  Mrs.  Harding  added  a  postscript  to  her  letter 
to  say,  “  I  durst  not  make  Mr.  Roger  Manners 
acquainted  in  these  matters,  because  I  think  him 
so  slow.”  It  affords  us  an  insight  into  the  troubles 
of  ladies  of  that  day  to  learn  from  Mrs.  Harding’s 


24 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


next  letter  that  she  herself  could  not  write,  and 
was  obliged  to  dictate  her  advice  on  these  private 
matters  to  some  third  person — a  circumstance  which 
caused  delay  when  she  was  unable  to  find  a  discreet 
secretary. 

The  Earl  of  Northumberland  was  unsuccessful  in 
his  wooings.  Lady  Bridget  declined  to  think  of 
him  as  a  husband,  and  Mrs.  Harding  was  forced 
to  comfort  herself  with  the  knowledge  that  “  my 
lady  doth  continue  in  Her  Majesty’s  good  liking 
still,  and  all  the  rest,  thanks  be  to  God,  and  doth 
keep  her  health  very  well,  and  never  looked  better 
in  all  her  life,  thanks  be  to  God.”  Mr.  Roger 
Manners,  who  had  lately  visited  her,  had  been 
profuse  of  civil  speeches  to  his  niece,  and  before 
going  down  into  the  country  asked  her  whether  she 
were  in  want  of  anything  ;  “  but  he  bestowed  not 
the  worth  of  a  pair  of  gloves  on  her  never  since 
her  first  coming  to  the  Court,  but  [only]  a  chain,” 
writes  the  indignant  Mrs.  Harding,  who  perhaps 
had  expected  some  small  gift  for  herself. 

In  the  November  of  the  same  year  (1592)  Sir 
Thomas  Heneage  wrote  by  the  queen’s  command 
to  Lady  Rutland,  to  praise  “  the  exceeding  good 
modest  and  honourable  behaviour  and  carriage  of 
my  Lady  Bridget,  your  daughter,  with  her  careful 
and  diligent  attendance  of  Her  Majesty,  so  content¬ 
ing  to  Her  Highness,  and  so  commendable  in  this 
place  where  she  lives,  where  vices  will  hardly  receive 
vizards  and  virtues  will  most  shine.  You  may  take 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  25 


comfort  of  so  virtuous  a  daughter,  of  whose  being 
here  and  attendance  Her  Majesty  hath  bidden  me  to 
tell  your  Ladyship  that  you  shall  have  no  cause 
to  repent.  Besides  I  must  show  your  Ladyship 
that  as  other  of  their  abundance,  so  you  of  your 
want  have  sent  her  such  tokens  as  are  worth  both 
best  acceptation  and  thanks.  The  rest,  touching 
the  token  of  Her  Majesty’s  remembrance,  which— 
considering  from  whence  it  comes — deserves  never 
to  be  forgotten,  I  refer  to  the  delivery  of  this  bearer.” 
One  wishes  that  Sir  Thomas  had  specified  the  nature 
of  this  “token.”  It  was  probably  of  small  value, 
Elizabeth,  as  she  told  Mary  of  Scotland,  having  long 
since  reached  the  age  at  which  persons  give  with 
the  little  finger  and  take  with  both  hands  ;  but  the 
countess  protested  dutifully  that  while  she  lived 
she  would  esteem  it  above  all  other  possessions, 
and  that  at  her  death  she  would  bequeath  it  to 
her  best-beloved  child  for  a  remembrance  of  her 
majesty’s  grace  and  favour. 

If  a  few  gracious  words  from  the  queen  were 
of  any  comfort  to  Lady  Rutland  it  was  well,  for 
her  health  declined  and  her  anxieties  did  not  lessen 
with  the  passage  of  years.  Her  enemies  continued 
their  exactions  and  annoyances,  the  worst  being 
the  Countess  Isabel,  whose  last  claim  was  for  two 
hundred  loads  of  brushwood  and  timber  for  eight 
hundred  piles,  “  for  work  about  Newark  Mills.”  In 
vain  did  Mr.  John  Manners  protest  that  there  was 
no  brushwood  in  Sherwood  Forest.  Lord  Burghley 


26 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


wrote  curtly  to  order  that  as  much  should  be  supplied 
as  the  workmen  required.  Another  illness  prostrated 
the  countess,  and  cut  her  off  for  the  time  from  inter¬ 
course  with  her  friends.  Under  the  circumstances 
she  may  well  have  been  anxious  to  see  her  daughter’s 
future  as  sure  as  it  could  be  made ;  and  she  or  her 
advisers  now  evolved  a  scheme  which  was  frequently 
put  into  execution  in  the  sixteenth  century.  From 
the  executors  of  a  certain  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  she  bought 
the  wardship  and  marriage  of  his  son,  to  whom 
she  proposed  to  give  Lady  Bridget  for  a  wife.  The 
executors,  Mr.  Roger  Manners  and  Lord  Rutland, 
all  approved  of  this  arrangement,  and  of  course  the 
feelings  of  the  bridegroom — to  which  no  allusion 
is  anywhere  made — were  of  no  importance. 

It  remained  to  secure  the  person  of  the  bride, 
and  this  proved  to  be  the  most  difficult  part  of  the 
business.  The  queen’s  aversion  to  matrimony  had 
not  decreased  since  the  days  when  one  of  Earl 
Edward’s  friends — a  maid-of-honour — sued  for  leave 
to  marry,  and  Elizabeth  “  dealt  liberal  both  with 
blows  and  evil  words.”  Sir  John  Harington,  the 
queen’s  godson,  tells  us  : 

“  She  did  often  ask  the  ladies  around  her  chamber 
‘  if  they  loved  to  think  of  marriage  ’ ;  and  the  wise 
ones  did  conceal  well  their  liking  thereto,  knowing 
the  Queen’s  judgment  in  this  matter.  Sir  Matthew 
Arundel’s  fair  cousin,  not  knowing  so  deeply  as  her 
fellows,  was  asked  one  day  hereof,  and  simply  said 
*  She  had  thought  much  about  marriage  if  her  father 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  27 


did  consent  to  the  man  she  loved.’  ‘  You  seem 
honest,  i’  faith,’  said  the  Queen  ;  ‘  I  will  sue  for  you 
to  your  father,’  at  which  the  damsel  was  well  pleased  ; 
and  when  her  father,  Sir  Robert  Arundel,  came 
to  Court,  the  Queen  questioned  him  about  his 
daughter’s  marriage,  and  pressed  him  to  give  con¬ 
sent  if  the  match  were  discreet.  Sir  Robert,  much 
astonished,  said  ‘  he  had  never  heard  his  daughter 
had  liking  to  any  man  ;  but  he  would  give  free 
consent  to  what  was  most  pleasing  to  Her  Highness’s 
will  and  advice.’  ‘  Then  I  will  do  the  rest,’  saith 
the  Queen.  The  lady  was  called  in,  and  told  by  the 
Queen  ‘  that  her  father  had  given  his  free  consent.’ 

Then,’  replied  the  simple  girl,  ‘  I  shall  be  happy, 
an  please  Your  Grace.’  ‘So  thou  shalt  ;  but  not 
to  be  a  fool  and  marry,’  said  the  Queen.  ‘  I  have 
his  consent  given  to  me,  and  I  vow  thou  shalt 
never  get  it  in  thy  possession.  So,  go  to  thy  business  ; 
I  see  thou  art  a  bold  one,  to  own  thy  foolishness  so 
readily.’  ” 

In  the  latter  years  of  Elizabeth’s  reign  her 
courtiers,  well  knowing  that  it  was  hopeless  to  obtain 
her  sanction,  married  by  stealth,  and  were  generally 
given  lodgings  in  the  Tower,  wherein  to  repent 
themselves,  as  soon  as  she  discovered  the  truth. 

Mr.  Roger  Manners,  for  whose  “  aid  and  advice  ” 
the  countess  appealed  at  this  juncture,  was  as  useful 
as  the  majority  of  his  sex  are  wont  to  be  in  an 
emergency.  He  “  prayed  God  that  the  success  of 
their  schemes  might  be  to  their  comfort  ”  ;  but  in 


28 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


spite  of  having  conferred  with  some  of  his  friends 
of  most  discretion,  he  could  devise  no  way  of  escape 
for  Lady  Bridget,  and  could  give  no  practical 
assistance,  his  health  obliging  him  to  keep  “  his 
time  appointed  to  go  to  Buckstones  [?  Buxton].” 
He  could  only  suggest  that  Lady  Rutland  should 
lay  the  whole  matter  before  the  Lord  Treasurer, 
and  “  require  his  furtherance  to  obtain  leave  of 
Her  Majesty  for  my  lady  your  daughter’s  coming 
unto  your  honour.” 

Instead  of  following  this  prudent  advice,  Lady 
Rutland  now  turned  to  Mary  Harding,  who  had 
much  to  say  on  the  subject.  A  likely  suitor  had 
just  presented  himself  in  the  shape  of  Lord  Wharton, 
of  whom  Lady  Bridget  seemed  to  approve.  It  was 
true  that  he  was  a  widower  with  a  family  of  children  ; 
but  Mrs.  Harding  considered  this  a  trifling  matter. 
Lady  Bridget’s  kindly  nature  would  make  her  love 
her  husband’s  children  as  her  own ;  while,  “  if  it 
pleased  God  to  bless  herself  with  any,  she  would 
not  doubt  but  that  He  that  sent  them,  would  pro¬ 
vide  for  them,” — a  comfortable  belief  which  seems 
still  to  influence  those  about  to  marry.  Any  marriage, 
however,  would  be  welcome  if  it  released  the  queen’s 
favourite  lady-in-waiting  from  her  post.  “If  your 
Ladyship  did  know  how  weary  my  lady  were  of  the 
Court,  and  what  little  gain  there  is  gotten  in  this 
time,  your  honour  would  willingly  be  contented 
with  a  meaner  fortune  to  help  her  from  hence.”  As 
to  the  means  of  escape,  Mrs.  Harding  was  ready 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER. 


29 


with  a  suggestion  :  “  I  think  the  nearest  way  were 
to  feign  the  measles,  so  she  might  have  leave  for  a 
month  to  see  your  Ladyship,  to  air  her.  And  when 
she  were  once  with  your  honour,  you  might  sue  to 
get  the  Queen’s  favour.  It  would  be  easily  granted 
when  she  were  so  far  from  her.” 

The  queen’s  horror  of  infection  was  notorious, 
and  was  frequently  used  to  their  advantage  by  her 
servants.  Any  one  suffering  from  the  measles  was 
not  likely  to  be  allowed  near  her  person. 

There  is  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  the  Countess 
Elizabeth  to  Mrs.  Mary  Ratcliff,  beseeching  that 
in  the  critical  condition  of  her  health  she  might  be 
allowed  a  visit  from  her  daughter,  whom  she  had  not 
seen  for  five  years.  This  letter  is  dated  July  1 8th, 
1 594.  Whether  Lady  Bridget  was  actually  reduced 
to  the  schoolboy  expedient  of  beating  herself  with  a 
hairbrush  does  not  appear,  but  in  August  she  was 
at  Belvoir  and  safely  married  to  Mr.  Tyrwhitt. 

True  to  her  habit  of  disclaiming  or  avoiding 
responsibility,  Lady  Rutland  now  wrote  elaborate 
letters  of  explanation  to  “  the  Lord  Chamberlain,” 
“  Mr.  Vice-Chamberlain,”  and  others,  to  protest  her 
ignorance  of  the  whole  matter.  This  was  so  mean- 
spirited  on  the  part  of  one  who  had  approved,  if 
not  contrived,  the  whole  plan  that  one  is  glad 
to  find  that  the  queen  utterly  refused  to  believe 
her.  Neither  her  letters  of  abject  apology  nor 
the  representations  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain  and 
Mr.  Vice-Chamberlain  would  convince  her  majesty 


3° 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


“  that  a  matter  of  such  weight  could  be  done  without 
your  Ladyship’s  acquaintance,  nor  that  my  Lady 
Bridget  would  have  adventured  so  great  a  breach  of 
duty  as  to  have  done  this,  her  last  and  greatest  act, 
without  your  honour’s  acquaintance  and  consent  first 
had  thereto.”  Thus  wrote  Mr.  Thomas  Screven, 
who  was  charged  with  the  duty  of  letting  the 
countess  know  the  queen’s  mind.  Mr.  Tyrwhitt 
was  forthwith  condemned  to  imprisonment  and  his 
wife  to  the  custody  of  some  lady.  These  were  the 
usual  sequels  of  a  clandestine  marriage,  and  could 
have  occasioned  no  surprise.  But  “  what  more  may 
follow,  God  knoweth,”  declared  Mr.  Screven,  the 
acrid  tone  of  whose  letter  suggests  that  he  had  not 
been  taken  into  his  lady’s  confidence,  and  resented 
it  accordingly  ;  “  for  Her  Majesty  is  highly  offended, 
and  principally  against  your  Ladyship,  without 
whom,  she  assureth  herself,  this  would  never  have 
been  done,  and  letteth  not  to  say  that  your  Ladyship 
was  bold  to  do  it,  believing  that  neither  your  honour 
nor  my  Lord,  your  son,  did,  or  should  ever  need 
Her  Majesty.  What  scope  this  will  give  to  your 
Ladyship’s  adversaries  to  work  on,  I  humbly  leave 
to  your  honourable  consideration.” 

Lady  Rutland  carried  her  policy  of  laissez-faire  so 
far  as  to  return  no  answer  to  the  queen’s  letter  and 
to  take  no  steps  for  “  sending  up  ”  her  daughter, 
thereby  drawing  upon  herself  a  stern  reproof  from 
Lord  Hunsdon,  and  an  order  to  deliver  Lady  Bridget 
to  the  custody  of  Lady  Bedford.  To  add  insult  to 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER.  31 


injury,  Mr.  Screven  now  wrote  to  remind  Countess 
Elizabeth  “of  the  present  you  are  wont  to  give  to 
the  Queen  on  the  day  of  her  reigning,  as  it  is  high 
time  to  provide  it  if  you  mean  it  to  be  done.” 

If  my  Lady  of  Bedford  were  the  same  lady  in 
whose  household  Lady  Bridget  was  received  before 
going  to  Court,  the  poor  girl’s  punishment  must 
have  been  severe.  It  would  scarcely  be  in  human 
nature  for  Lady  Bedford  to  refrain  from  improving 
the  occasion  or  from  holding  up  Lady  Bridget  as  an 
awful  warning  to  the  young  ladies  who  were  finishing 
their  education  in  her  establishment.  To  add  to 
all  other  vexations,  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  fell  ill. 

But  Lady  Bridget  was  resolute  not  to  betray 
her  mother,  and  stoutly  continued  to  maintain  that 
she  herself  was  alone  responsible  for  all  that  had 
occurred.  However  she  might  resent  an  injury, 
Elizabeth  always  respected  high  spirit  in  man  or 
woman,  and  although  she  still  declined  to  believe  in 
Lady  Rutland’s  innocence,  she  did  not  deal  hardly 
with  Lady  Bridget  after  the  first  burst  of  her 
indignation  had  subsided.  Mr.  Roger  Manners  was 
stirred  to  unwonted  activity  by  the  distress  of  his 
niece,  and  even  came  to  town  to  sue  to  the  Lord 
Chamberlain,  who  promised  his  intercession.  Mr. 
Tyrwhitt’s  illness  was  a  good  excuse  for  clemency 
in  his  case,  and  after  releasing  him,  her  majesty 
“  graciously  considered  of  Lady  Bridget,”  and  set  her 
at  liberty.  Lord  Hunsdon  wrote  to  Lady  Rutland 
on  November  27th  to  inform  her  that  the  queen 


32 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


“doth  not  impute  the  fault  so  much  to  the  young 
couple  as  to  your  Ladyship,”  and  therefore  pardoned 
them.  “  But  now,”  continues  Lord  Hunsdon,  who 
evidently  did  not  study  the  art  of  making  his  letters 
agreeable  to  the  recipient,  “  there  rests  but  for  your 
Ladyship  to  send  for  your  daughter  as  you  sent 
her  to  my  Lady  Bedford’s  by  her  [the  queen’s]  com¬ 
mandment,  who  is  now  here  in  this  town  ready  to 
deliver  her,  whensoever  your  Ladyship  sends  for  her, 
and  the  sooner  the  better,  for  my  Lady  of  Bedford 
hath  been  long  burdened  with  her.”  Seeing  that 
poor  Lady  Bridget  cannot  have  had  the  least  desire 
to  trespass  on  Lady  Bedford’s  hospitality,  the  last 
sentence  is  needlessly  ungracious. 

The  Earl  of  Rutland’s  case  was  at  this  time  under 
her  majesty’s  consideration,  as  well  as  that  of  his 
sister.  He  was  desirous  to  see  foreign  countries,  but 
it  was  first  necessary  to  obtain  the  queen’s  leave, 
which  was  granted  on  condition  that  “  some  discreet 
honest  man  ”  should  accompany  him.  Lord  Burghley, 
who  conversed  with  the  earl  before  his  departure, 
found  him  “  quite  ignorant  of  his  estate,”  and  wrote 
to  bid  Lady  Rutland  to  “  acquaint  him  fully  there¬ 
with  ” ;  and,  “  as  my  own  knowledge  thereof  is  not 
much  better,  also  to  let  me  understand  the  same.” 

Whether  from  the  jealousy  of  authority  often 
exhibited  by  temporary  regents,  or  from  that  natural 
incapacity  which  she  bewailed  to  the  commissioners, 
Lady  Rutland  could  give  no  account  of  her  steward¬ 
ship.  Writing  to  his  brother  John  at  Christmas,  1 594, 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER. 


33 


old  Roger  Manners  complained  of  the  mystery  where¬ 
with  she  chose  to  veil  the  earl’s  affairs.  “  I  perceive 
by  my  Lord  of  Rutland’s  letter  that  the  Countess 
dealeth  strangely,  and  for  all  her  promises  will  come 
to  no  account  nor  make  him,  nor  any  of  his  friends 
any  way  acquainted  with  her  dealings.  I  pray  God 
this  breed  no  falling  out  in  the  end.”  Mr.  Manners 
had  evidently  bestowed  some  good  advice  upon  his 
niece  which  had  been  ill-received  (perhaps  her  recent 
marriage  had  made  her  feel  independent  of  the  uncle 
who  had  been  liberal  with  little  except  reproof),  since 
he  goes  on  to  say :  “  For  the  fault  I  find  with  Lady 
Bridget  she  hath  often  been  told  of  it,  but  all  is 
in  vain.” 

Whether  by  meek  submission  to  the  rod  and 
seasonable  offerings  Lady  Rutland  would  have  made 
her  peace  with  the  authorities  can  never  be  decided. 
The  strain  and  anxiety  of  the  last  few  months  had 
been  too  much  for  her  feeble  constitution.  The 
exact  date  of  her  death  does  not  appear,  nor  whether 
her  son  returned  from  his  travels  in  time  to  close 
her  eyes  ;  but  on  April  9th,  1595,  Roger  Manners 
wrote  to  condole  with  the  earl  that  the  estate  was 
found  to  be  no  better,  suggesting  that  if  he  were 
to  examine  my  lady’s  letters  and  papers  he  might 
find  some  clue  as  to  what  had  become  of  the  rest. 
While  protesting  his  love  for  his  nephew,  Mr.  Manners 
could  not  find  time  to  come  to  his  help,  having 
important  business  in  London,  and  he  opined  that 
Mr.  John  Manners  was  more  experienced  and  more 

3 


34 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


capable  of  giving  good  advice,  “  if  you  earnestly 
require  him  to  do  so.” 

A  careful  study  of  his  letters  does  not  lead  to 
the  conclusion  that  Mr.  Roger  Manners  lacked  the 
power  to  counsel  the  rising  generation  if  he  chose  ; 
but  in  justice  to  him  it  must  be  owned  that  he 
was  then  fully  occupied  by  a  terrible  scandal  in  the 
Talbot  family.  Edward  Talbot  (a  younger  son  of 
Queen  Mary’s  gaoler)  was  accused  by  “  my  lady’s 
alkmist,  Wodd,”  of  instigating  him  to  poison  Gilbert, 
Earl  of  Shrewsbury ;  and  Roger  Manners,  whose 
sister  had  been  mother  to  both  Gilbert  and  Edward, 
was  maintaining  Edward’s  innocence. 

The  earl  submitted  an  estimate  for  the  funeral 
expenses  of  his  mother,  and  the  queen  and  Lord 
Rurghley  pronounced  that  “  considering  his  estate, 
he  should  not  exceed  the  note  he  had  set  down,  but 
rather  lessen  it.”  After  a  life  of  incessant  vexations, 
Countess  Elizabeth  was  grudged  even  a  burial 
suitable  to  her  rank  when  she  had  at  last  succeeded 
fn  laying  down  her  responsibilities  and  escaping 
from  a  most  troublesome  world. 

Her  sons  inherited  her  propensity  for  doing  the 
wrong  thing.  Lord  Rutland  and  two  of  his  brothers 
were  involved  in  the  harebrained  revolt  of  the  Earl 
of  Essex,  and  were  lucky  in  escaping  with  imprison¬ 
ment  and  fines.  None  the  wiser  for  this  experience, 
the  second  of  the  three,  on  succeeding  his  brother 
in  the  title,  must  needs  be  reconciled  to  the 
Church  of  Rome — under  a  sovereign  who  believed 


A  MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER. 


35 


himself  to  have  been  the  destined  victim  of  the 
Gunpowder  Plot. 

Perhaps  the  most  fortunate  of  this  very  maladroit 
family  was  Lady  Bridget,  who  disappears  almost 
entirely  from  sight  as  soon  as  she  is  released 
from  Lady  Bedford’s  duress.  About  a  year  after 
her  mother’s  death,  Mr.  John  Manners,  who  was  not 
easily  pleased  with  the  rising  generation,  wrote  to 
her  brother,  the  earl,  that  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  was  a  good 
husband  and  Lady  Bridget  a  passing  good  wife. 

Five  years  later  Dr.  Jegon,  the  earl’s  old  tutor, 
entertained  Lady  Bridget  and  her  “goodly  boy” 
at  Cambridge.  Her  comfort  was  then  somewhat 
disturbed  by  the  extravagance  of  her  husband,  who 
declined  to  give  any  assurance  of  her  jointure,  or  to 
allow  her  more  than  £200  a  year  for  herself,  having 
originally  promised  her  £400.  “  Wherewith,  notwith¬ 

standing,  she  is  well  contented,”  concludes  Doctor 
Jegon,  whose  heart  had  warmed  to  the  fair  young 
matron,  “  and  they  live  very  well,  and  agree  together 
most  lovingly.” 

Very  soon  after  this  visit,  Lady  Bridget’s  married 
life  came  to  an  end.  The  calendar  of  manuscripts  at 
Belvoir  contains  a  paper  dated  July  10th,  1604,  with 
the  copy  of  an  inscription  to  the  memory  of  Lady 
Bridget,  wife  of  Robert  Tyrwhitt,  and  daughter  of 
John,  Earl  of  Rutland,  who  died  leaving  three  sons 
and  one  daughter. 


II. 

A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 

Brilliana  Conway  (Lady  Harlky) 
(i b.  1600;  d.  1643). 


37 


II. 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 
ONSTITUTIONAL  principles,  Protestantism, 


K— '  and  even  common  sense  may  lead  us  to  rejoice 
that  the  cause  of  the  Stuarts  died  with  the  Young 
Chevalier,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  revived  even  by 
the  harmless  enthusiasts  who  toast  their  liege  lady, 
Mary  of  Este,  and  hang  garlands  about  the  statue 
of  King  Charles  the  Martyr  or  the  tomb  of  Mary, 
Queen  of  Scots.  Yet  the  greater  number  of  us  must 
confess  that  if  our  heads  are  Whig,  our  hearts  are 
Jacobite.  Some  allowance  must  be  made  for  the 
fascination  which  a  lost  cause  always  possesses  for 
imaginative  spirits,  and  still  more  allowance  for  the 
spirit  of  opposition  which  is  so  important  a  factor  in 
the  education  of  young  people.  The  histories  supplied 
in  nurseries  and  schoolrooms  are  of  strictly  constitu¬ 
tional  tendencies — a  fact  which  in  itself  is  enough 
to  make  nine  out  of  ten  children  as  devoted  to  the 
much  abused  Stuarts  as  any  household  of  young 
“  malignants  ”  in  the  seventeenth  century.  But 
after  making  all  deductions  on  these  scores,  it 
must  be  owned  that  all  the  glamour,  all  the  romance, 


39 


4° 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


all  the  charm,  of  those  days  has  gathered  about 
the  memory  of  those  who  fought  for  their  rightful 
king.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  very  cultured 
or  very  unimaginative  people,  we  all  feel  that  the 
Royalists  are  those  with  whom  we  are  most  in 
sympathy.  We  have  forsaken  the  exquisite  incon¬ 
sistency  with  which  former  generations  thanked 
God,  on  May  29th,  for  restoring  Charles  II.,  and  on 
November  5th  for  assisting  a  Dutchman  to  dethrone 
his  brother ;  but,  reason  as  we  may,  the  withered 
leaves  of  the  white  rose  still  smell  more  sweetly 
than  the  flaccid  petals  of  the  orange  lily  ;  and  it  is 
better  to  listen  to  the  low,  clear  whistle  of  the 
blackbird  than  to  the  strident  crash  and  blare 
of  the  German  bands  that  acclaim  the  arrival  of 
the  House  of  Hanover. 

Poet,  musician,  artist,  story-teller,  all  have  com¬ 
bined  to  invest  with  a  picturesque  halo  the  figures 
of  those  who  fought  on  one  side  in  the  great 
rebellion  and  in  the  subsequent  struggles,  and  they 
are  living,  breathing  human  beings,  while  most  of 
their  opponents  are  empty  names.  It  is  unjust  to 
some  of  the  actors  that  it  should  be  so,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  even  the  insignificant  Royalists  are 
more  familiar  to  us  than  the  eminent  Puritans.  Few 
of  us,  for  example,  could  give  a  clear  description  of 
Pym’s  character  and  person  ;  half  a  dozen  lines  in  a 
catalogue  and  a  picture  by  Van  Dyke  have  made 
the  Young  Cavalier,  who  died  ringed  about  by  his 
foes,  with  his  back  to  a  tree,  an  actual  personality, 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


41 


though  he  was  of  little  real  importance  in  his  day. 
If  this  is  the  case  with  the  men,  how  much  more 
is  it  true  of  the  women  ?  Among  Puritan  ladies 
we  may  have  some  recollection  of  the  exemplary 
but  tedious  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  the  false  Lady 
Carlisle,  who  betrayed  both  sides  alternately,  and 
profited  nothing  by  her  treason  ;  but  Lady  Fanshawe 
and  Lady  Morton  are  more  familiar.  We  have  all 
admired  the  constancy  of  Charlotte  de  la  Tremouille, 
Countess  of  Derby  ;  but  a  Puritan  heroine  as  brave 
and  as  sorely  tried  as  the  daughter  of  the  Huguenots 
is  unknown  to  many  whose  pulses  have  often  thrilled 
at  the  story  of  the  defence  of  Lathom  House. 

On  the  borders  of  Herefordshire  lies  the  little 
village  of  Brampton  Bryan,  founded,  so  says  tradi¬ 
tion,  by  the  Norman  de  Bryan.  Only  fragments 
remain  of  the  old  castle,  which  was  destroyed  by  the 
Royalist  forces  under  Sir  Michael  Woodhouse  in 
1644.  In  the  previous  year  it  had  held  out  bravely 
against  the  enemy,  but  in  the  interval  it  had  lost 
the  brave  mistress  who  was  the  life  and  soul  of  the 
defence — Brilliana,  the  wife  of  Sir  Robert  Harley, 
Master  of  the  Mint  and  Knight  of  the  Bath.  She 
is  generally  known  as  “the  Lady  Brilliana”  ;  but  as 
her  father,  Edward  Conway,  never  attained  a  higher 
rank  than  that  of  viscount,  she  had  no  right  to 
the  courtesy  title ;  in  our  day  she  would  have 
been  the  Honourable  Lady  Harley. 

At  the  time  of  her  birth,  in  1600,  her  father  was 
Governor  of  Brill,  or  “  the  Brill,”  as  it  was  then 


42 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


called,  and  to  this  circumstance  she  owed  her  extra¬ 
ordinary  name,  which,  unfortunately  for  the  girls 
of  the  Harley  family,  was  handed  down  through 
succeeding  generations.  Presumably  the  Conways 
returned  to  England  in  1606,  as  an  Act  was  passed 
in  that  year  “  for  the  naturalisation  of  the  children 
of  Sir  Edward  Conway,  Knight.”  Her  education 
was  unusually  good  at  a  time  when  an  educated 
woman  was  the  exception  and  not  the  rule.  The 
standard  set  in  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth  had 
declined,  but  Brilliana  could  have  borne  to  have 
been  judged  by  it.  She  could  read  French  more 
easily  than  her  own  tongue,  and  also  knew  Latin; 
she  had  thoroughly  studied  ancient  and  modern 
history,  as  well  as  divinity.  She  was  a  notable 
housewife,  famed  for  her  manufacture  of  pies,  biscuits, 
cakes,  and  other  delicacies,  and  prided  herself  on 
her  skill  in  compounding  medicines.  With  all  these 
accomplishments  she  was  quite  unable  to  spell,  as 
her  correspondence  shows.  Some  of  the  words  in 
most  familiar  use  became  unintelligible  conglomera¬ 
tions  of  letters  under  her  pen.  But  many  of  her 
contemporaries  of  her  own  sex  did  no  better ;  and, 
happily  for  her,  she  did  not  live  in  our  age  of  board- 
schools  and  cheap  culture,  when  arbitrary  spelling 
is  wrongly  considered  a  mark  of  illiteracy. 

The  Conways  seem  to  have  been  a  happy 
and  affectionate  family,  even  when  Sir  Edward 
introduced  a  stepmother  into  their  home.  Brilliana 
had  three  brothers  and  at  least  two  sisters,  one  of 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


43 


whom  bore  an  even  more  uncouth  name  than  her 
own,  that  of  “  Heiligenwith  ” — probably  another  relic 
of  their  stay  in  the  Low  Countries.  Owing,  perhaps, 
to  the  loss  of  her  mother,  her  favourite  relation  appears 
to  have  been  her  mother’s  sister  Mary,  wife  of  Sir 
Horace  Vere  (afterwards  Lord  Vere  of  Tilbury). 
Many  years  after  her  marriage  she  wrote  to  her 
daughter  that  there  was  not  a  wiser  or  better  woman 
than  my  Lady  Vere. 

There  must  always  have  been  a  certain  vein  of 
austerity  in  Brilliana  underlying  all  her  sweetness 
and  gentleness,  and  perhaps  it  was  this  that  attracted 
her  to  the  rigid  Puritan,  Sir  Robert  Harley.  At 
first  sight  the  match  seems  disproportionate.  To  our 
latitudinarian  eyes  he  appears  bigoted  and  intolerant ; 
he  was  more  than  twenty  years  her  senior,  and  he 
had  already  been  married  twice.  A  letter  from  him 
to  a  lady  whom  he  had  courted,  but  declined  to  marry, 
owing  to  disputes  about  the  settlements,  does  not 
give  a  very  favourable  impression  of  his  character. 
“  Though  your  father’s  dealings  with  me  hath  been 
much  under  expectation,  and  more  disproportionable 
to  worthy  proceeding  in  a  matter  of  so  dear  im¬ 
portance,  yet  shall  it  not  privilege  me  to  detain 
from  you  what  is  your  due.  ...  I  must  acquaint 
you  that  your  father’s  more  than  unkind  usage  hath 
been  the  strong  motive  of  this  fatal  breach  ;  where¬ 
with  how  far  you  have  been  of  familiarity  I  know 
not,  but  it  shall  be  great  satisfaction  to  me  that  I 
let  you  know  it  was  his  fault.” 


44 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


However,  as  these  negotiations  miscarried  early 
in  Sir  Robert’s  life,  it  is  possible  that  he  may  have 
improved  in  his  maturer  years,  and  Sir  Edward 
Conway’s  letter  to  him  on  the  occasion  of  his 
marriage  to  Brilliana  could  only  have  been  written 
by  one  who  thoroughly  approved  of  the  union  : 

“  My  good  son — for  so  methinks  it  is  your  good 
pleasure  that  the  style  run,  and  methinks  it  is  as 
rich  an  embroidery  to  me  as  it  can  be  silk  lace  to 
you  ;  although  I  have  told  you  true  of  myself,  and 
could  find  in  my  heart  to  allay  my  daughter  to 
raise  your  value,  yet  since  she  hath  a  long  race 
to  run  with  you,  and  that  you  have  advantages 
enough  over  her  already,  I  will  not  give  you  this 
that  you  may  misprize  her  out  of  her  father’s 
mouth,  and  therefore  I  will  only  say  that  the 
bargain  was  equally  made,  and  I  pray  God  much 
good  may  it  do  to  you.  But  if  it  would  please  you 
to  be  as  good  a  son  as  she  will  be  a  wife,  and  as 
good  a  husband  as  I  will  be  a  faithful  friend,  I 
shall  take  it  for  a  great  favour  of  fortune  that  I 
may  have  the  honour  to  style  myself  your  loving 
father.” 

Brilliana’s  marriage  took  place  on  July  22nd,  1622, 
and  she  then  went  to  live  at  Brampton  Bryan. 
The  Harleys  were  allied  by  marriage  with  all  the 
leading  families  in  Herefordshire  and  the  neighbour¬ 
hood,  so  that  she  was  surrounded  by  connections, 
and — a  circumstance  which  she  must  have  valued 
more  highly — the  rector  of  Brampton  Bryan.  Mr. 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


45 


Thomas  Pierson  was  a  man  of  rare  sanctity  and 
of  considerable  toleration,  in  spite  of  his  Puritan 
strictness ;  he  instituted  the  rigid  observance  of 
Ember  weeks  and  fast-days,  “  the  resort  to  which 
of  many  godly  persons  from  remote  places  was  as 
the  flight  of  doves  to  the  windows  of  holy  light.” 
A  more  practical  good  work  was  the  effecting  of  a 
reconciliation  between  old  Mr.  Thomas  Harley  and 
his  son  Sir  Robert,  who  for  some  time  had  been  on 
uncomfortable  terms.  So  far  from  meeting  the 
usual  fate  of  peacemakers,  Mr.  Pierson  (against 
whom  Mr.  Plarley  had  formerly  lodged  frequent 
complaints  with  the  Bishop  of  Hereford)  succeeded 
in  winning  the  old  man’s  friendship  and  con¬ 
fidence,  and  ministered  to  him  continually  in  his 
latter  days. 

The  early  years  of  Lady  Harley’s  married  life 
were  fairly  peaceable,  and  were  marked  chiefly  by 
the  constant  additions  to  her  family.  The  eldest — 
a  boy  christened  Edward  after  his  grandfather,  who 
delighted  in  him — was  born  rather  more  than  a  year 
after  her  marriage,  and  was  followed  by  Robert, 
Thomas,  Brilliana,  Dorothy,  and  Elizabeth.  All  of 
these  lived  to  grow  up — a  circumstance  uncommon 
in  their  day,  when  the  mortality  among  young 
children  was  terrible.  Did  one  survive  the  treatment 
to  which  itself  and  its  mother  were  subjected  at 
the  time  of  its  birth,  the  rigorous  course  of  bleed¬ 
ing,  blistering,  and  dosing  which  it  was  afterwards 
compelled  to  undergo,  killed  all  but  the  very  strongest. 


46 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


Sir  Robert’s  second  wife  had  borne  him  nine  children, 
not  one  of  whom  lived  beyond  infancy. 

Lady  Harley’s  own  health  was  wretched.  Nothing 
but  her  undaunted  spirit  could  have  enabled  her 
to  live  as  long  as  she  did,  with  the  cares  of  a  young 
and  very  delicate  family  on  her  shoulders  and  the 
management  of  the  whole  estate  left  to  her  during 
her  husband’s  frequent  absences.  When  his  duties 
as  Knight  of  the  Shire  or  as  Master  of  the  Mint 
did  not  keep  him  in  London,  the  business  of  the 
county,  of  which  he  was  an  active  and  a  diligent 
promoter,  generally  called  him  to  Hereford  or 
elsewhere.  Lady  Harley  passed  many  lonely  hours 
in  her  castle,  which  she  beguiled  by  writing  long 
and  affectionate  letters  to  her  absentee  husband. 
Whether  he  were  at  all  worthy  of  the  love  that 
she  bestowed  upon  him  does  not  seem  clear ;  that 
he  often  left  her  to  pass  through  her  confinements 
alone  may  have  been  the  result  of  accident,  or  of 
an  honest  conviction  that  his  duty  to  his  country 
must  override  his  duty  to  his  wife.  But  when  the 
hour  of  sorest  need  came  for  Brampton  Castle  and 
its  lady,  Sir  Robert  was  absent  from  his  home  ; 
and  either  his  religious  principles  or  a  naturally 
reserved  disposition  kept  him  from  responding  to 
his  wife’s  beseechings  for  a  little  tenderness.  “  Alas  ! 
my  dear  sir,  I  know  you  do  not,  to  the  one  half 
of  my  desires,  desire  to  see  me  that  loves  you  more 
than  any  earthly  thing,”  she  wrote  once  to  him, 
when  he  was  in  London  and  she  was  nursing  her 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


47 


old  father-in-law  and  her  four  oldest  children  with 
“great  colds”  at  Brampton. 

Most  of  her  charm  was  probably  inherited  from 
her  father,  although  she  was  so  unfortunate  as  to 
lack  the  keen  sense  of  humour  so  marked  a  feature 
in  his  letters  and  those  of  his  eldest  son,  which  would 
have  helped  her  to  bear  her  many  trials.  Soon 
after  marriage  Sir  Edward  Conway  was  raised  to 
the  peerage  as  Baron  Conway  of  Ragley,  and  wrote 
a  bantering  letter  to  his  daughters  Heiligenwith  and 
Mary  to  say,  “  If  there  be  traffic  between  Brocklesby,* 
Brampton  and  you,  then  tell  those  ladies  that  I  have 
found  out  that  the  best  thing  in  being  a  baron  is 
that  the  strife  is  taken  away  from  them  for  place, 
since  the  eldest  daughter  of  a  Baron  goes  before 
a  Knight’s  wife  of  the  Bath.”  He  kept  up  an 
affectionate  correspondence  with  his  “children,”  Sir 
Robert  and  Lady  Harley,  and  never  forgot  to  send 
messages  to  his  grandchildren,  “  our  son,  Secretary 
Edward,  and  my  acquaintance,  Robin,  and  my  un¬ 
known  Thomas,  and  my  dear  Brill.” 

Lord  Conway’s  death  in  the  winter  of  1630 — 1631 
must  have  been  a  sore  grief  to  his  daughter,  who  was 
taken  very  ill,  whether  in  consequence  of  the  shock 
or  for  other  reasons  does  not  appear.  The  new 
Lord  Conway  wrote  a  kind  and  friendly  letter  to 
Sir  Robert,  lamenting  that  the  execution  of  his 
father’s  will  is  likely  to  give  rise  to  a  dispute  with 

*  Brocklesby  was  the  home  of  Lady  Harley’s  elder  sister, 
Frances,  wife  of  Sir  W.  Pelham. 


48 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


his  widow — “  which  I  would  be  as  loath  to  fall  upon 
as  a  rock  at  sea.  I  would  be  content  with  some 
loss  rather  than  not  part  with  her  with  a  good 
grace,” — a  little  touch  which  gives  a  pleasant  idea 
of  the  sweet,  obliging  temper  of  the  Conways. 

*  * 

* 

The  first  great  break  in  Lady  Harley’s  life  after 
the  loss  of  her  father  must  have  been  the  parting 
with  his  namesake,  her  eldest  son,  who  was  sent  to 
Magdalen  Hall,  Oxford,  in  the  autumn  of  1638, 
under  the  care  of  his  excellent  tutor,  Mr.  Perkins. 
Between  Lady  Harley  and  Edward  there  seems 
to  have  existed  that  tender  sympathy  and  devotion 
which  is  sometimes  to  be  found  between  mothers 
and  sons,  but  not  between  any  other  relatives.  It 
is  the  saying  of  one  who  was  a  mother  herself  that 
the  tie  which  binds  a  woman  to  her  eldest  son  is 
closer  than  that  which  binds  her  to  any  of  her  other 
children,  and  it  often  seems  as  if  this  were  the  case. 
It  is  certain  that  Edward  was  more  to  Lady  Harley 
than  all  her  other  children,  loving  mother  though 
she  was ;  perhaps,  finding  her  husband  not  so 
responsive  as  she  could  have  wished,  she  consoled 
herself  for  his  coldness  by  lavishing  affection  on 
her  boy.  Edward’s  delicate  health,  inherited  from 
herself,  may  have  been  the  excuse  made  to  her 
sensitive  conscience  for  the  passionate  tenderness 
with  which  she  regarded  him.  His  after  life  shows 
that  he  was  worthy  of  such  a  mother. 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


49 


Her  letters  to  him,  many  of  which  are  in  existence, 
are  such  as  any  devoted  mother  might  write  at  any 
period,  making  allowances  for  style  and  phraseology. 
Her  repeated  exhortations  to  him  to  be  careful  of 
his  religious  progress  would  scarcely  be  relished 
by  the  modern  schoolboy,  who  would  appreciate 
still  less  the  medicines  for  the  good  of  the  body 
which  often  accompanied  her  advice  for  the  good  of 
the  soul.  Lady  Harley  piqued  herself  not  a  little 
upon  her  knowledge  of  physic  (poor  soul  !  she  had 
abundant  opportunities  to  prove  it,  upon  her  children 
as  well  as  herself),  although  her  compounds  were  not 
always  favourably  regarded  by  regular  practitioners. 
Mr.  Richard  Owen,  of  Oriel  College,  Oxford,  wrote  a 
complimentary  Latin  letter  to  Edward  Harley  upon 
his  coming  up  to  the  University,  and  added  at  the 
conclusion,  “  Remember  me  to  your  lady  mother, 
whose  medicines  however  my  London  doctor 
has  forbidden  me  to  take.”  Nothing  discouraged 
by  this,  Lady  Harley  continued  to  prescribe 
for  her  family,  and  that  they  survived  the 
treatment  at  all  is  the  sign  of  their  marvellous 
vitality.  Whether  it  were  “  beer  boiled  with 
liquorice”  or  with  “scurvy-grass”  for  internal  ail¬ 
ments,  water  for  sore  eyes,  bezoar-stone  for  the 
ague,  “  orampotabely  ”  ( ' aurum  potabile)  for  general 
debility,  or  myrrh  to  hold  in  the  mouth  as  a  pre¬ 
ventive  against  the  plague,  she  was  ready  to  supply 
it  for  Edward’s  benefit.  Her  own  description  of 
the  doses  poured  down  the  reluctant  throats  of  her 

4 


so  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

younger  boys,  both  of  whom  were  subject  to  “  fits  ” — 
apparently  of  ague — awakes  sympathy  and  horror 
in  those  accustomed  to  a  milder  regime.  “Your 
brother  Robert,”  she  once  informs  Edward,  “  was 
very  ill,  and  I  prevailed  with  him  to  take  a  vomit, 
which,  he  says  now,  if  he  had  not  taken  he  thinks 
he  had  been  in  his  grave  ;  but  he  was  very  unwilling 
to  take  any  more  physic,  so  he  did  not  ;  and  I  fear 
he  is  a  little  scorbutical ;  for  his  teeth  are  loose. 
He  is  altogether  against  physic  ;  he  thinks  an  ague 
must  be  worn  away  by  going  abroad  ;  but  these  are 
not  such  agues.”  She  herself  was  ready  at  all  times 
to  submit  to  the  dosing,  bleeding,  blistering,  and 
other  varieties  of  torture  ordained  by  the  doctors, 
and  even  went  so  far  at  times  as  to  declare  herself 
better  for  it.  With  all  her  love  of  prescribing  for 
others,  she  did  not  approve  of  those  who  pretended 
to  understand  their  own  diseases.  “  Here  enclosed 
I  have  sent  you  two  letters,”  she  warns  her  son, 
“  by  which  you  may  know  Mr.  Hibbons  took  a  vomit 
contrary  to  all  counsel,  and  thereupon — died.” 

But  if  she  were  anxious  to  dose  her  son,  she 
was  still  more  anxious  to  feed  him.  Soon  after 
his  arrival  at  college  she  sent  him  a  cake  to  eat 
in  memory  of  home,  and  few  messengers  passed 
between  Brampton  Bryan  and  Oxford  without 
bearing  some  dainty  to  “  my  dear  son,  Mr.  Edward 
Harley.”  The  hampers  that  now  ruin  the  digestion 
and  the  morals  of  the  public  schoolboy  are  trifles 
to  those  which  this  Puritan  youth  received  from 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE.  51 

his  mother.  At  first  she  was  doubtful  whether  she 
might  send  him  a  cold  pie,  as  his  father  had  said 
that  he  would  not  care  for  it,  and  Mrs.  Pierson’s 
son,  when  at  Oxford,  had  declined  any  such  gifts 
from  his  family.  To  her  great  joy,  Edward  was 
graciously  pleased  to  accept  it,  and  nearly  every 
variety  of  pie  was  henceforth  sent  to  him — some¬ 
times  as  many  as  seven  coming  at  a  time.  Kid 
pies,  turkey  pies,  venison,  veal,  and  bacon  were  given 
into  the  charge  of  the  Oxford  carrier,  besides  lighter 
refreshments,  such  as  violet  cakes,  biscuits,  and 
apples.  Sometimes  Edward’s  sister  “  Brill  ”  would 
add  a  box  of  wafers  or  some  quince  cakes.  The 
tutor,  Mr.  Perkins,  was  not  neglected,  but  received 
boxes  of  sweetmeats,  dried  plums,  and  other  tokens 
of  good  will  and  remembrance. 

There  is  an  indescribable  charm  about  the  letters 
which  Lady  Harley  penned,  often  from  a  sick-bed, 
to  the  child  of  her  heart.  In  spite  of  the  severity  of 
the  religious  teaching  in  which  she  and  her  family 
had  been  bred,  in  spite  of  the  restraint  and  formality 
then  thought  proper  between  young  people  and 
their  elders,  the  woman  and  mother  in  her  cannot 
be  repressed,  and  is  continually  breaking  through 
artificial  bonds.  The  originals  of  these  letters  are 
said  to  be  untidy  and  ill-written,  and  the  spelling  is 
inconceivably  obscure.  She  could  not  even  master 
such  an  ordinary  word  as  “  write,”  which  in  her 
hands  is  always  transformed  to  “  rwite.”  Yet,  for 
all  this,  after  toiling  through  many  closely  printed 


52 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


pages  that  at  first  sight  bear  little  resemblance  to 
English,  it  is  impossible  not  to  love  and  reverence 
the  writer. 

“  I  may  well  say  you  are  my  well-beloved  child  ; 
therefore  I  can  but  tell  you  I  miss  you.” — “  My  dear 
Ned,  nothing  here  below  on  the  earth  is  more  dear 
to  me  than  your  being  well.  It  is  that  I  pray  for, 
and  rejoice  when  I  am  assured  of  it.  .  .  .  My  dear 
Ned,  write  to  me  as  soon  as  you  can  ;  for  I  long 
to  hear  from  you,  and  the  Lord  in  mercy  let  me 
hear  well  from  you.” — “  I  may  well  say  that  my  life 
is  bound  with  yours,  and  I  hope  I  shall  never  have 
cause  to  recall  and  repent  of  my  love,  with  which  I 
love  you.” — “  My  prayers  are  for  your  health,  and 
I  hope  the  Lord  will  be  merciful  to  me  in  you,  and 
as  I  may  so  say,  to  spare  my  Joseph  to  me.”  She 
gave  him  a  ring,  which  he  wore  until  it  was  broken, 
and  then  he  kept  the  fragments.  Hearing  of  this, 
she  sent  him  another,  with  these  words,  which  might 
have  been  written  by  a  mistress  to  her  lover : 
“  Since  you  kept  the  brittle  ring  till  it  brake,  I  have 
sent  you  one  of  a  more  [enjduring  substance,  and 
that  you  may  know  I  have  worn  it,  I  have  left  the 
ribbon  upon  it,  which  did  help  to  make  it  fit  for 
my  finger  ;  and  keep  this  till  I  give  you  a  better.” 
It  is  evident  that  her  continued  illnesses  had  wasted 
her  until  the  rings  would  not  stay  on  her  fingers. 

It  is  difficult  to  gather  intelligence  from  Lady 
Harley’s  letters,  as  she  flies  from  one  topic  to 
another,  mingling  her  anxieties  for  the  welfare  of 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


53 


Ned’s  soul  with  inquiries  whether  he  has  “something 
over  his  bed’s  head,”  and  solicitude  for  the  distracted 
state  of  the  kingdom,  with  fears  that  he  will  ruin  his 
health  by  confining  his  diet  to  fish  during  Lent. 
Her  own  infirmities  prevented  her  from  keeping  the 
public  and  private  fasts  as  she  would  have  wished. 
The  register  of  Brampton  Bryan  still  contains  a 
memorandum  that  Dame  Brilliana  Harley  was 
licensed  by  Thomas  Pierson,  rector,  to  eat  flesh 
on  fast-days  in  reason  of  her  great  weakness,  “  until 
it  shall  please  God  to  render  her.”  The  number  of 
these  fasts,  which  were  then  observed  by  all  classes, 
may  seem  strange  to  us,  to  whom  fasting  has  become 
a  badge  of  a  religious  party  instead  of  a  general 
custom  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  salted 
meats  then  formed  the  staple  provision  of  the 
household  during  all  the  winter  months,  and  that  it 
was  absolutely  necessary  for  health  that  this  should 
be  relieved  by  an  enforced  diet  of  eggs,  fish,  vegetables, 
and  such  light  fare  in  the  early  spring.  Like  many 
other  rules  of  the  ancient  Church,  abstinence  from 
flesh-meat  was  enjoined  as  much  in  the  interest  of 
the  body  as  of  the  soul. 

Every  trivial  misfortune  or  vexation  was  regarded 
by  Lady  Harley  as  coming  directly  from  a  Higher 
Power.  When  a  long  illness  confined  her  to  her 
bed  she  wrote  to  Edward  :  “  I  take  it  as  a  special 
providence  of  God,  that  I  have  so  froward  a  maid 
about  me  as  Mary  is,  since  I  love  peace  and  quietness 
so  well ;  she  has  been  extremely  froward  since  I 


54 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


have  been  ill ;  I  did  not  think  that  any  would  have 
been  so  choleric.”  She  was  not  so  desirous  of 
special  providences  for  her  darling,  as  the  next 
sentence  shows  :  “  I  pray  God,  if  ever  you  have  a 
wife,  she  may  be  of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit.”  If  the 
tone  of  this  letter  is  too  suggestive  of  Dean  Hole’s 
old  woman,  who  rejoiced  in  the  slanders  of  her 
next-door  neighbour  as  “another  lift  towards  Heaven,” 
there  is  real  beauty  in  the  passages  in  which  Lady 
Harley  reminds  her  son  that  through  bodily  weakness 
and  mental  anxiety  her  absolute  trust  and  hope  in 
the  goodness  of  God  had  sustained  her.  “Nay,  this 
is  our  comfort,  that  the  time  of  trouble  is  a  special 
time,  in  which  the  Lord  has  commanded  His  children 
to  seek  unto  Him  ;  and  the  Lord  does  not  bid  us  to 
seek  Him  in  vain.”  That  these  were  not  empty 
words  was  proved  by  her  perfect  calmness  in  the 
face  of  the  trial  from  which  she  had  earnestly  prayed 
to  be  delivered,  when  children,  home,  and  goods  were 
in  dire  peril,  and  husband  and  son  were  far  away. 

In  spite  of  her  saintliness,  occasionally  there  is 
a  refreshing  savour  of  humanity  about  her.  “  Mr. 
Scidamore  [?  Scudamore]  that  dwells  hard  by  Here¬ 
ford,  who  married  my  Lord  Scidamore’s  sister,  told 
your  father  the  other  day  at  Hereford,  that  he  would 
_  see  you  at  Oxford,”  she  wrote  to  Edward.  “  He  has 
been  abroad  in  France  and  Italy ;  if  he  do  come 
to  you,  be  careful  to  use  him  with  all  respect. 
But  in  the  entertainment  of  any  such,  be  not  put 
out  of  yourself ;  speak  freely,  and  always  remember 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


55 


that  they  are  but  men  ;  and  for  being  gentlemen  it 
puts  no  difference  between  you  ;  for  you  have  part 
in  nobleness  of  birth  ;  though  some  have  place  before 
you,  yet  you  may  be  in  their  company.” 

The  son’s  letters  to  his  mother  are  not  to  be  found, 
and  it  is  conjectured  that  they  disappeared,  with 
many  other  valuables,  when  Brampton  Bryan  Castle 
was  destroyed.  It  is  sometimes  possible  to  gather 
the  substance  of  what  he  wrote  from  Lady  Harley’s 
replies.  We  hear  little  of  his  studies,  and  still  less 
of  his  amusements.  The  latter  seem  to  have  been  of 
a  curious  nature.  Most  of  us  have  laughed  over 
the  ancient  statute  which  forbids  the  Oxford  under¬ 
graduate  to  carry  a  bow  and  arrows  or  to  play 
marbles  on  the  steps  of  St.  Mary’s,  and  it  is  some¬ 
thing  of  a  shock  to  find  this  Puritan  youth  indulging 
in  a  pastime  as  childish  as  either  of  these.  An  in¬ 
disposition  which  attacked  him  soon  after  his  arrival 
at  college  was  attributed  by  his  mother  to  over- 
indulgence  in  swinging.  He  had  his  moments  of 
worldliness,  as  is  proved  by  the  story  of  his  new 
clothes.  In  his  first  term  he  required  another  suit 
of  clothes,  and  seems  to  have  wished  to  ruffle  it  a 
little,  like  some  of  the  young  gallants  who  swaggered 
about  the  streets  in  laced  cloaks  and  jewelled  bands. 
But  his  father  sent  orders  that  the  new  suit  was  to 
be  of  the  plainest,  and  poor  Lady  Harley  was  nearly 
torn  in  pieces  between  her  habitual  submission 
to  her  husband  and  her  natural  wish  to  give 
her  darling  all  that  he  wanted.  She  dared  not 


56  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

even  express  her  sympathy  openly,  and  was  forced 
to  bestow  comfort  in  a  letter  sent  by  special 
messenger,  unknown  to  Sir  Robert  Harley  or  to 
any  of  her  household :  “  Dear  Ned,  it  is  very  well 
done  that  you  submit  to  your  father’s  desire  in  your 
clothes ;  and  that  is  a  happy  temper,  both  to  be 
contented  with  plain  clothes,  and  in  the  wearing  of 
better  clothes  not  to  think  oneself  the  better  for 
them,  nor  to  be  troubled  if  you  be  in  plain  clothes 
and  see  others  of  your  rank  in  better.” 

The  letters  between  Edward  and  his  sister  “  Brill  ” 
give  a  pleasant  picture  of  family  life,  very  like  what 
is  to  be  found  in  a  contented  household  of  the  same 
class  in  these  days,  although  the  young  lady  bestows 
more  attention  on  the  state  of  his  soul  than  would 
be  tolerated  by  a  modern  brother.  She  sends  him 
a  box  of  wafers,  and  he  takes  much  trouble  to 
procure  her  a  silver  thimble.  When  she  loses  her 
hood,  and  dares  not  confess  it  to  her  mother,  it  is 
to  Edward  that  she  applies  for  another  ;  and  Lady 
Harley,  seeing  the  new  hood,  divines  whence  it  came, 
but  says  nothing  to  the  culprit,  and  privately  repays 
to  Edward  what  he  had  spent  on  it.  Once  there 
is  a  trifling  cloud  between  the  brother  and  sister. 
Lady  Harley  had  been  ill,  and  Brill,  thinking  that 
“  bad  news  would  come  fast  enough,”  forbore  to 
say  anything  of  it  in  writing  to  her  brother. 
Unluckily  Edward  heard  of  it  from  some  other 
source,  and  wrote  a  violent  rating  to  poor  Brill, 
explaining  her  silence  by  the  cruel  surmise  that 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


57 


she  was  too  busy  at  patis  to  attend  to  her  mother. 
What  patis  may  have  been  it  is  impossible  to  ex¬ 
plain,  as  Mr.  Richard  Ward,  who  prints  the  letter, 
gives  no  interpretation  of  the  word.  A  friend  has 
suggested  “  parties,”  which  may  be  near  the  truth. 
But  whatever  it  was,  the  accusation  cruelly  wounded 
Brill.  She  reminds  Edward  of  her  mother’s  continual 
illnesses  when  he  was  at  home,  and  asks  him  if  he 
then  ever  saw  her  at  patis.  Three  days  later  she 
writes  to  say  that  she  hopes  he  has  forgiven  her. 
Edward  still  preserves  an  offended  silence,  and  Brill, 
who  was  a  true  woman,  instead  of  sulking  in  her 
turn,  waited  till  Lady  Harley  had  left  her  bed  to 
write  again,  and  then  hoped  that  the  good  news  of 
the  patient’s  recovery  would  make  amends  for  all 
that  had  passed.  “  The  last  letter  you  wrote  me  had 
not  a  spark  of  love  in  it ;  I  would  be  very  glad  of  a 
letter  with  a  little  more  love  in  it,”  she  pleads  with 
a  gentleness  that,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  made  Edward 
ashamed  of  his  injustice,  for  her  next  letter  is  in  a 
more  cheerful  strain,  and  alludes  to  two  murders 
which  had  recently  enlivened  the  neighbourhood. 

She  was  a  better  correspondent  than  he  was,  and 
although  she  once  jestingly  complains  that  he  would 
greatly  prefer  a  good  cold  pie  “  if  it  were  in  com¬ 
petition  betwixt  my  letters  and  your  learned  lips,” 
she  owns  that  she  can  never  write  too  often  to  him, 
if  it  were  every  hour. 

Sir  Robert  Harley  was  frequently  away  from  home, 
and  when  he  returned,  although  he  brought  presents 


58 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


of  lemons  to  his  family,  which  were  very  welcome, 
he  added  nothing  to  the  tranquillity  round  him.  His 
iconoclastic  tendencies  would  have  done  credit  to  a 
Greek  emperor  or  a  Dutch  reformer,  and  did  not 
make  him  popular  with  his  neighbours.  Brill  writes 
to  tell  Edward  that  a  certain  Robert  Mathey,  of 
Buckton,  in  making  some  alterations  in  his  stable, 
found  “  a  most  horrible  picture  of  the  great  God 
of  Heaven  and  Earth,” — one  can  almost  see  the 
scandalised  dismay  in  the  face  of  the  good  little 
maiden  as  she  penned  her  “  crippled  lines.”  He  kept 
it  in  safety  for  about  a  year,  and  then  some  officious 
busybody  thought  good  to  reveal  its  existence  to  Sir 
Robert.  The  Puritan  knight  immediately  ordered 
it  to  be  brought  to  him,  and  broke  it  in  pieces  ;  “  and 
I  flung  the  dust  upon  the  water,”  adds  Brill,  who  at 
that  time  was  not  ten  years  old.  Some  time  later 
Sir  Robert  went  to  the  Quarter  Sessions  at  Hereford, 
and  on  his  return  journey  passed  through  Leominster, 
and  beheld  in  the  churchyard  “  one  crucifix,  and 
another  crucifix  of  stone  over  the  church  porch, 
and  in  the  great  window  in  the  west  end  of  the 
church  two  crucifixes  painted,  and  other  scandalous 
pictures  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity,  and  in  the 
great  window  in  the  east  end  of  the  church  one 
other  crucifix  painted,”  all  of  which  he  immediately 
required  the  churchwardens  to  remove. 

At  the  same  time  Mr.  Henry  Eccleston,  steward 
of  the  king’s  household  at  Ludlow  Castle,  wrote  to 
the  Earl  of  Bridgewater,  President  of  the  Marches, 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


59 


to  complain  of  “  Sir  Robert  Harlow’s  [sic]  vehement 
course  in  pulling  down  the  cross  at  Wigmore,”  which 
was  beaten  to  dust  with  a  sledge-hammer.  Three 
days  later,  as  Mr.  Eccleston  testifies,  Sir  Robert 
pulled  down  the  cross  at  Leintwardine,  and  broke 
the  windows  in  the  church,  “  and  beat  the  glass  small 
with  a  hammer  and  threw  it  into  Teme,  in  imitation 
of  King  Asa,  2  Chron.  xv.  16,  who  threw  the  images 
into  the  brook  Kedron  ;  and  because  he  could  not 
come  at  Kedron  he  threw  it  into  Teme,  as  Mr. 
Yeates,  one  of  his  chaplains,  said.”  An  attempt  to 
work  similar  damage  at  Aymestry  was  successfully 
resisted  by  the  parish,  “  and  so  he  departed  for  that 
time.”  Aymestry  still  preserves  its  beautiful  rood- 
screen  of  carved  wood,  thanks  to  the  spirit  of  those 
who  resisted  Sir  Robert’s  zeal.  After  reading  all 
these  instances  of  his  bigotry  and  vandalism,  it  is 
difficult  to  regret  the  destruction  of  his  castle. 

Lady  Harley  rejoiced  to  hear  that  the  communion 
table  in  Hereford  Cathedral  had  been  turned,  and 
“copes  and  basins  and  all  such  things  taken  away”  ; 
but  there  was  much  sound  common  sense  blended 
with  her  ardent  desire  for  the  “  purging  ”  of  the 
Church.  When  her  younger  sons,  after  the  manner 
of  priggish  boys,  paraded  extreme  religious  opinions, 
she  wrote  to  her  “  dear  Ned,”  “  My  fear  is  lest  we 
should  fall  into  the  same  error  as  Calvin  did,  who 
was  so  earnest  in  opposing  the  popish  holy  days 
that  he  intrenched  upon  the  holy  Sabbath ;  so  I 
fear  we  shall  be  so  earnest  in  beating  down  their 


6o 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


too  much  vilifying  of  the  Common  Prayer  Book, 
that  we  shall  say  more  for  it  than  we  ever 
intended.” 

*  # 

* 

It  is  tempting  to  linger  over  these  middle  years 
of  Lady  Harley’s  life.  In  spite  of  a  large  family, 
some  members  of  which  were  always  ailing,  a  husband 
who,  to  put  it  mildly,  was  far  from  being  as  con¬ 
siderate  as  he  ought,  and  her  own  wretched  health, 
there  were  some  intervals  of  brightness.  After 
Edward  left  college,  one  trouble  followed  fast  on 
the  heels  of  another — “  not  single  spies,  but  in 
battalions  ” — until  she  could  bear  no  more. 

Oxford,  always  noted  for  its  loyalty,  can  never 
have  been  a  congenial  residence  for  a  Harley,  and 
as  the  breach  between  king  and  parliament  widened, 
it  became  impossible  to  remain  neutral.  At  first 
“  the  sickness  ”  (either  the  plague  or  the  small-pox) 
was  the  pretext  for  Edward’s  remaining  with  his 
father  at  Westminster  instead  of  returning  to 
Magdalen  Hall  ;  but  in  the  May  of  1641  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Perkins  to  have  his  name  taken  off  the  college 
books.  The  tutor  was  then  under  a  cloud,  having 
been  caught  by  the  vice-chancellor  and  proctors, 
not  making  merry  at  a  tavern,  but  holding  a  prayer¬ 
meeting — a  far  more  heinous  offence — with  others 
of  the  same  mind  with  himself. 

Edward  remained  in  London,  and  his  mother 
was  torn  in  two  between  her  thankfulness  that  he 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


61 


was  with  his  father  and  her  fears  that  he  would  fall 
a  victim  to  “the  sickness,”  which  was  then  spreading 
throughout  the  city.  “  Dear  Ned,  I  could  wish  your 
chamber  were  in  Lincoln’s  Inn,  and  not  in  the  lane 
over  against  it ;  those  lanes  were  the  unsweetest 
places  in  London,  and  always  the  sickness  is  in 
those  places.  I  would  have  you  tell  your  father  what 
I  think  of  your  chamber  and  the  house.  I  would 
have  writ  to  him  about  it  myself,  but  that  I  thought 
it  might  trouble  him  to  read  so  long  a  letter.” 

Without  reading  the  old  news-letters  or  other 
records  of  those  times,  it  is  difficult  to  realise  how 
terribly  the  country  was  scourged  by  the  plague 
before  the  great  outbreak  in  1665.  The  Court  was 
obliged  to  shift  from  place  to  place  before  it,  and 
those  who  were  perforce  confined  in  London  or 
other  great  cities  died  like  flies.  In  the  summer 
in  which  Queen  Henrietta  Maria  arrived  in  England 
as  a  bride,  nearly  two  thousand  persons  were 
dying  weekly  of  the  plague  in  London  alone.  The 
Michaelmas  sessions  of  all  the  law  courts  were 
adjourned  to  Reading.  The  judge,  who  was  obliged 
to  give  notice  of  the  adjournment,  drove  up  from 
the  country  in  his  coach,  bringing  provisions  for  the 
day  with  him,  and  dined  with  his  suite  under  the 
trees  at  Hyde  Park  Corner.  After  dinner  he  drove 
to  Westminster  Hall  as  fast  as  his  lumbering  coach 
would  bear  him,  through  empty  streets  in  which 
the  rank  grass  was  springing,  adjourned  the  court, 
and  fled  from  the  pestilence-stricken  city. 


62 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


In  spite  of  her  fears,  Lady  Harley  soon  found 
herself  obliged  to  part  with  another  child.  Her 
bad  health  and  many  cares  prevented  her  from 
giving  sufficient  attention  to  Brill,  and  Lady  Vere, 
the  kind  aunt  who  had  been  so  much  to  her,  was 
willing  to  take  the  girl  into  her  household.  It  was 
too  good  an  opportunity  to  be  lost,  and  Lady  Harley 
could  but  rejoice  to  bestow  her  daughter  in  such 
excellent  keeping,  although  she  wrote  to  Ned,  “It 
is  my  grief  that  my  condition  in  health  is  such  that 
I  can  not  be  of  more  advantage  to  you  all  than  I 
am.”  Ned,  thoughtful  of  his  mother,  had  sent  her 
a  welcome  present  of  some  “  sparigous  ”  (probably 
asparagus),  but  Sir  Robert  had  merely  vouchsafed  a 
grumble  because  she  had  not  remitted  some  money 
for  which  he  had  asked.  She  might  have  pleaded 
that  she  had  been  very  ill  with  “  a  great  fit  of  the 
stone,”  but  her  only  rejoinder  was,  “  I  am  sorry 
that  your  father  was  displeased  for  not  having  his 
money  sooner  ;  but  I  did  what  I  could,  and  so  will 
do  still.”  It  is  a  wonder  that  she  kept  her  temper 
under  her  continual  trials.  Her  younger  sons  were 
wasting  their  time  in  idleness  at  home,  their  tutor 
having  declared  himself  too  ill  to  continue  his  lessons, 
Sir  Robert  would  return  no  answer  to  her  inquiries 
as  to  his  wishes  for  them,  and  her  new  cook  proved 
“  so  naught  ”  that  she  was  forced  to  dismiss  him. 

In  the  summer  of  1641  some  atonement  was  made 
to  her  ;  Edward  came  home  for  a  short  while.  “  I 
cannot  blame  you  to  be  unwilling  to  leave  so  dear 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


63 


a  father  ;  yet  remember,  you  come  to  a  mother  that 
loves  you,”  she  urged,  with  sweet  simplicity,  when 
the  question  of  his  coming  was  raised.  As  far  as 
can  be  decided  from  the  dates  of  her  letter,  Edward 
reached  Brampton  in  August,  and  did  not  return 
to  London  till  the  following  January  or  February. 
In  all  probability  their  comfort  during  these  happy 
months  was  not  diminished  by  the  fact  that  Sir 
Robert  was  forced  to  be  in  London  for  the  most 
part  of  the  time. 

It  was  the  last  interval  of  peace — a  hush  before 
the  bursting  of  the  storm.  Towards  the  end  of 
November,  1641,  the  country  was  so  disturbed  and 
the  fears  of  “  a  Papist  rising  ”  so  general  that  Lady 
Harley,  by  her  husband’s  directions,  laid  in  a  store 
of  bullets,  and  caused  the  pieces  of  cannon  at 
the  castle  to  be  charged.  She  had  only  two  men 
under  her  roof,  and  feared  that  the  castle  would 
never  stand  a  siege.  Under  the  circumstances  she 
entreated  her  husband  that  she  might  seek  a  refuge 
for  herself  and  the  children  in  Shrewsbury  or  some 
other  neighbouring  town.  But  Sir  Robert  pooh- 
poohed  the  fear  of  any  difficulties  with  the  “  Papists,” 
and  Lady  Harley  submitted  to  his  will.  The 
children  were  “  not  very  afraid,”  and  it  was  her 
great  joy  that  she  had  such  a  dear  husband,  who, 
she  knew,  would  always  take  care  of  her  children 
and  herself.  The  pathetic  submissiveness  of  her 
letter  ought  to  have  touched  Sir  Robert’s  heart, 
but  he  was  too  busy,  with  others  of  the  House  of 


64 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


Commons,  passing  a  vote  “  never  to  tolerate  Popery  ” 
to  pay  much  attention  to  so  insignificant  a  matter 
as  the  safety  of  his  family.  It  shows  the  difference 
between  husband  and  wife  that  in  the  midst  of  her 
preparations  for  the  defence  of  Brampton  Bryan  she 
could  find  time  to  make  some  quince  cakes,  which 
she  packed  carefully  in  a  little  box  and  sent  him, 
“  to  put  in  his  pocket.” 

Private  griefs  were  added  to  public  anxieties,  for 
in  January,  1642,  the  death  of  “my  sister  Wake” 
threw  Lady  Harley  into  mourning.  She  wrote  to 
beg  her  husband  to  give  her  “  a  grogram  gown,” 
and  was  careful  to  explain  to  his  masculine  intellect 
that  grogram  was  “  a  plain  silk  stuff.”  Her  son’s 
letters  were  her  great  comfort,  and  he  was  a  frequent 
correspondent.  As  Sir  Robert  grew  more  and  more 
absorbed  in  public  business,  never  sending  the  in¬ 
struction  she  needed  in  such  matters  as  the  education 
of  the  boys  or  the  management  of  the  estate,  she 
turned  more  and  more  to  Ned,  entreating  him  to 
remind  his  father  of  this  or  of  that,  and  to  let  her 
know  what  he  said.  The  agent’s  dealings  had  long 
been  unsatisfactory  ;  but  of  course  Sir  Robert  could 
not  be  troubled  to  choose  another  or  to  allow  his 
wife  to  appoint  one  whom  she  liked  and  trusted. 
Sir  Robert  was  instant  in  demanding  pies  to  be 
made  and  sent  to  his  London  lodgings,  but  would 
not  give  his  delicate  wife  a  coach  and  horses  so 
that  she  might  be  “  able  to  take  the  air  sometimes.” 
The  only  consolation  left  to  the  exasperated  reader 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


65 


of  her  pitiful  yet  uncomplaining  letters  is  the  re¬ 
flection  that  Sir  Robert  must  have  been  extremely 
helpless  and  uncomfortable  when  she  could  no  longer 
drudge  for  him. 

Brill’s  departure  from  home  had  been  delayed  by 
one  cause  and  another,  and  it  was  not  until  April, 
1642,  that  she  left  the  mother  whom  she  was  never 
to  see  again,  bearing  with  her  a  letter  and  two 
shirts  for  Ned,  who  met  her  on  the  way.  He  was 
implored  by  his  mother  to  remember  that  Brill  was 
young  ;  “  therefore,  dear  Ned,  observe  her  carriage 
and  let  not  your  counsel  be  wanting  to  her,  and  I 
hope  she  will  have  so  much  wisdom  to  take  it.” 
Much  of  the  good  advice  bestowed  on  Ned  during 
his  stay  at  college  by  his  sister  was  probably  now 
retorted  upon  her.  Lady  Harley  was  anxious  to 
hear  how  Brill  looked  on  her  arrival.  “  She  did  look 
much  paler,  I  think,  by  reason  of  her  earnest  desire 
to  go  up  to  London.”  The  country  was  still 
disturbed,  as  Sir  William  Waller,  who  had  been  busy 
in  the  neighbourhood,  had  gone  to  Gloucester,  leaving 
“  poor  Hereford  ”  without  any  one  to  govern  it  ;  but 
while  still  in  a  state  of  semi-siege,  Lady  Harley’s 
chief  longing  was  to  hear  whether  Brill  still  looked 
pale.  To  add  to  her  troubles,  little  Dorothy  was  very 
ill,  and  little  Peggy  seized  this  opportunity  to  put 
her  knee  out  of  joint,  and  had  to  be  sent  to  Coventry, 
as  there  was  no  bone-setter  to  be  found  nearer  to 
Brampton  Bryan. 

Once  more  Lady  Harley  renewed  her  entreaties 

5 


66 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


to  her  husband  to  be  allowed  to  leave  the  castle 
for  a  time.  The  country  was  “very  insolent,”  and 
became  more  unsafe  every  day.  “  There  is  nobody 
who  loves  you  or  me,”  she  told  him  ;  and  it  is  likely 
that  she  was  right  so  far  as  Sir  Robert  was  concerned. 
To  her  son  she  spoke  more  plainly.  Sir  Robert, 
instead  of  taking  measures  for  her  safety,  had  been 
complaining  of  the  management  of  his  property, 
and  her  vexation  could  not  be  altogether  suppressed. 
“  I  wish  myself  with  all  my  heart  at  London,  and 
then  your  father  might  be  a  witness  of  what  is 
spent,”  she  writes  ;  and  then  the  old  habit  of 
patient  self-control  returns,  and  she  hastens  to  add  : 
“  If  your  father  think  it  best  for  me  to  be  in  the 
country,  I  am  very  well  pleased  with  what  he  shall 
think  best.” 

Sir  Robert’s  next  proceeding  was  to  join  with  those 
who  were  raising  troops  of  horse  in  different  parts 
of  the  country  “  for  the  good  of  this  poor  kingdom,” 
as  Lady  Harley  gracefully  phrased  it,  and  to  send 
his  orders  to  Brampton  Bryan  for  contributions  in 
money  and  in  kind.  Ready  money  there  was  none  ; 
but  Lady  Harley’s  common  sense  decided  that  it 
would  be  better  for  the  present  to  borrow  on  security 
than  to  sell  their  plate.  “  We  do  not  know  what 
straits  we  may  be  put  to,  and  therefore  I  think  it  is 
better  to  borrow  whilst  one  may  and  keep  the  plate 
for  a  time  of  need.”  Sir  Robert,  however,  demanded 
that  the  “  gilt  plate  ”  should  be  sent  to  him  in  London. 
Lady  Harley  prepared  to  obey,  although  there  was 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


67 


much  difficulty  in  finding  a  “  trunk  ”  (or  “  truck  ”) 
large  enough  to  contain  it.  There  were  disturbances 
at  Hereford  and  Ludlow,  and  Tom  Harley  was 
suddenly  taken  desperately  ill — “so  that,  dear  Ned, 
I  find  that  one  trouble  follows  another.”  A  little 
later  came  the  news  that  the  Hereford  justices  were 
ordered  by  the  king  to  call  out  the  militia.  Lady 
Harley’s  first  thought  was  to  write  and  assure  her 
husband  and  son  separately  that  she  was  “  not  afraid,” 
and  to  ask  for  directions  from  Sir  Robert,  although 
by  this  time  she  can  have  had  no  hope  of  receiving 
any.  The  plate  was  at  last  despatched,  and  she 
managed  to  send  with  it  a  cake  for  her  husband 
and  to  write  to  her  son  :  “  I  am  confident  you  are  not 
troubled  to  see  the  plate  go  this  way  ;  for  I  trust 
in  our  gracious  God,  you  will  have  the  fruit  of  it.” 

Several  attempts  were  made  by  Lady  Harley 
throughout  the  month  of  July  to  be  relieved  of  her 
post,  but  to  no  purpose.  Whether  Sir  Robert  had 
implicit  faith  in  her  power  of  bringing  herself  and 
her  belongings  through  all  difficulties,  or  whether  he 
honestly  believed  that  she  was  as  safe  at  Brampton 
as  anywhere  else,  or  whether  he  were  as  selfish  and 
careless  in  his  domestic  life  as  most  enthusiasts  are 
apt  to  be,  the  result  was  the  same.  His  wife  and 
young  children  were  deserted  in  their  hour  of  need 
by  the  one  who  should  have  been  their  chief  pro¬ 
tector.  “  If  you  think  it  best  for  me  to  stay  I  shall 
be  content,”  wrote  Lady  Harley,  “  but  I  have  little 
joy  to  stay  when  I  see  how  little  they  care  for 


68 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


you  who  are  worth  ten  hundred  thousand  of  them.  I 
pray  God  bless  Ned  and  Brill.” 

After  this  she  resigned  herself  to  her  lot,  heartened 
by  the  faith  that  never  abandoned  her.  “  Since  you 
think  Brampton  a  safe  place  for  me,  I  will  think 
so  too  ;  and  I  would  not  for  anything  do  that  which 
might  make  the  world  believe  our  hope  did  begin 
to  fail  in  our  God.”  At  the  same  time,  her  trust 
in  a  Higher  Power  was  not  enough  to  make  her 
willing  that  Ned  or  his  father — especially  Ned — 
should  run  the  risks  she  was  ready  to  face.  She 
wrote  to  both,  reiterating  her  desire  that  neither 
of  them  should  attempt  to  come  to  Brampton.  She 
was  very  anxious  that  Sir  Robert  should  send  one 
of  his  acquaintance,  of  a  religious  spirit,  to  be  with 
her  “  till  the  storms  were  a  little  over,”  and  give  her 
advice  how  to  defend  the  castle  ;  but  she  apologised 
for  asking  even  as  little  as  this.  “  Dear  Sir,  do  not 
take  this  as  if  it  arose  from  a  distracted  heart,  but 
as  from  thoughts  how  best  to  prevent  any  evil ; 
and  most  dear  Sir,  take  all  as  from  a  wife  that  will 
most  willingly  do  what  you  will  have  me  do.” 

There  is  an  exquisite  blending  of  religious  enthu¬ 
siasm  and  practical  good  sense  in  a  letter  written 
to  her  son  at  this  time.  She  begins  by  assuring 
hipi  that  she  is  not  afraid,  and  trusts  that  the  Lord 
will  work  for  His  own  Name’s  sake.  She  sends  the 
letter  by  a  servant  who  is  “  such  a  roguish  boy  ” 
that  she  dares  not  keep  him  at  the  castle ;  and  as  she 
dares  not  dismiss  him  there  for  fear  he  should  join 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


69 


the  volunteers,  or  “  some  such  crew,”  she  despatches 
him  to  London  with  only  money  enough  to  “  bear 
his  charges  up,”  and  begs  Ned  to  persuade  him  to 
go  to  sea.  Then  follows  a  postscript :  “  My  cousin 
Davis  tells  me  that  none  can  make  shot  but  those 
whose  trade  it  is,  so  I  have  made  the  plumber  write 
to  Worcester  for  fifty  weight  of  shot.”  Lady  Harley 
might  trust  in  God,  but  she  was  also  fully  alive  to 
the  necessity  of  keeping  her  powder  dry. 

Another  letter  addressed  to  her  husband  gives  an 
outline  of  her  plans  for  defence.  She  made  choice 
of  about  twenty  men  in  the  neighbourhood,  to  whom 
she  gave  meat  and  drink  and  threepence  a  day. 
They  were  to  be  ready  to  assemble  at  beat  of  drum, 
and  in  the  meantime  were  to  come  up  to  the  castle 
by  threes  and  fours  to  practise  shooting. 

News  of  these  preparations  spread  abroad  ;  and 
Sir  William  Croft,  a  loyal  neighbour,  came  to  warn 
Lady  Harley  that  his  old  friendship  for  Sir  Robert 
could  not  withhold  him  from  doing  his  duty.  Lady 
Harley  thanked  him,  and  assured  him  that  her 
preparations  were  for  defence,  not  for  attack  on  the 
neighbourhood.  Sir  William  hinted  that  there  was 
probably  a  store  of  arms  in  the  castle  which  it 
must  be  his  duty  to  seize.  “  I  told  him,”  says  Lady 
Harley,  “  I  had  no  more  arms  there  than  for  the 
defence  of  my  home,  and  I  would  keep  them  as 
well  as  I  could.”  Sir  William  recognised  the  im¬ 
possibility  of  coercing  one  who  by  descent  and  by 
marriage  belonged  to  an  impracticable  faction.  “  He 


7° 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


answered  that  I  was  Lord  Conway’s  daughter,  Lord 
Conway’s  sister,  and  Sir  Robert  Harley’s  wife  and 
a  woman  of  great  spirit,”  and  went  away  to  write  a 
long  letter  to  Sir  Robert,  urging  him  to  return  to 
his  allegiance  to  the  king.  Although  the  allusions 
to  Sir  William  Croft  scattered  among  Lady  Harley’s 
letters  are  usually  somewhat  contemptuous,  it  is 
evident  that  he  was  a  man  of  no  unkind  heart. 

In  August  or  September,  1642,  Lady  Harley  was 
gladdened  by  the  arrival  of  her  son,  who,  disregarding 
all  her  injunctions,  came  to  share  her  peril.  No 
worse  danger,  however,  assailed  them  than  a  false 
alarm  given  by  the  discharge  of  two  muskets  “  through 
some  waggery,”  on  a  night  when  the  garrison,  after 
keeping  a  fast-day,  had  retired  exhausted  to  bed. 
Sir  Robert  himself  visited  Brampton  in  the  autumn, 
and  occupied  his  leisure  in  raising  levies  for  the 
cause  of  the  Parliament.  After  a  consultation  with 
the  Earl  of  Stamford,  who  was  keeping  in  check  the 
“  malignants  ”  of  the  west,  Sir  Robert  returned  to 
London  in  December;  and  Ned,  who  now  held  a 
command  in  the  Parliamentarian  army,  could  not 
stay  to  protect  his  mother. 

The  parting  with  her  darling  son  was  almost  more 
than  she  could  bear,  and  a  letter  written  on  a  piece 
of.  cloth  for  better  concealment  shows  how  the  brave 
spirit  was  quailing.  “  My  heart  has  been  in  no  rest 
since  you  went.  I  confess  I  was  never  so  full  of 
sorrow.  I  fear  the  provision  of  corn  and  malt  will 
not  hold  out  if  this  continue  ;  and  they  say  they 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


71 


will  burn  my  barns  ;  and  my  fear  is  that  they  will 
place  soldiers  so  near  me  that  there  will  be  no  going 
out.  My  comfort  is  that  you  are  not  with  me,  lest 
they  should  take  you  ;  but  I  do  most  dearly  miss 
you.  I  wish,  if  it  please  God,  that  I  were  with 
your  father.  I  would  have  writ  to  him,  but  I  durst 
not  write  upon  paper.  Dear  Ned,  write  to  me, 
though  you  write  upon  a  piece  of  cloth  as  this 
is.”  Presumably  Sir  Robert  could  not  be  troubled 
to  decipher  a  letter  written  on  cloth. 

The  Marquis  of  Hertford,  who,  with  Lord  Herbert, 
was  one  of  the  Royalist  leaders  in  the  west,  had 
now  arrived  in  Hereford,  and  sent  a  letter  to  Lady 
Harley.  Apparently  it  was  a  summons  to  surrender, 
for  the  Sunday  after  it  was  received  was  set  apart 
by  her  and  her  household  “  to  seek  to  our  God  ”  ; 
“  and  then,  on  Monday,”  she  says  simply,  “  we 
prepared  for  a  siege  ;  but  our  good  God  called 
them  another  way.” 

The  siege  was  only  deferred,  not  abandoned.  In 
January  Lady  Harley  found  that  the  Brampton 
Bryan  tenants  were  forbidden  to  pay  their  rents, 
that  the  fowler  might  not  bring  her  any  game, 
that  her  young  horses  were  driven  away,  and  that 
it  was  not  safe  for  any  of  her  servants  to  approach 
the  town.  “  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  stay  with  safety, 
for  they  threaten  to  put  soldiers  into  my  house. 
I  believe  you  do  not  imagine  how  they  use  me,” 
she  wrote  to  her  husband  with  irrepressible  indig¬ 
nation.  In  her  next  letter  she  confesses  to  having 


72 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


feared  that  the  relations  then  existing  between  king, 
parliament,  and  people  might  sadden  him,  “  but  they 
tell  me  you  are  cheerful.”  If  under  the  circum¬ 
stances  Sir  Robert  could  be  cheerful,  either  his  heart 
or  his  faith  must  have  been  miraculously  tough. 

Some  crumbs  of  comfort  were  left  for  the  brave 
lady.  Doctor  Wright,  the  kindly  physician  who 
had  so  often  attended  upon  herself  and  her  family, 
now  came  with  his  wife  and  took  up  his  abode 
in  the  castle.  The  children  were  all  well,  and  she 
succeeded  in  getting  a  parcel  of  linen  to  Ned. 

At  two  o’clock  on  the  afternoon  of  March  4th 
a  captain  and  two  trumpeters  appeared  before  the 
castle,  and  delivered  a  summons  from  Fitzwilliam 
Coningsby  to  the  garrison  “  to  deliver  up  to  His 
Majesty’s  use  the  fort  and  castle  of  Brampton  Bryan, 
with  all  arms,  ammunition,  and  all  other  warlike 
provision  about  or  in  the  said  fort  and  castle,  under 
the  pain  to  be  taken  and  proceeded  against  both 
by  law  and  martial  force  as  persons  guilty  of  high 
treason.” 

Lady  Harley’s  reply  was  prompt  and  decided  : 
“  This  is  my  answer.  Our  gracious  King,  having 
many  times  promised  that  he  will  maintain  the  laws 
and  liberties  of  the  kingdom,  by  which  I  have  as 
good  right  to  what  is  mine  as  any  one,  maintains 
nie  these,  and  I  know  not  upon  what  ground  the 
refusal  of  giving  you  what  is  mine  by  the  laws  of 
the  land  will  prove  me  or  any  that  is  with  me, 
traitor.” 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


73 


She  sent  copies  of  the  summons  and  her  answer 
to  Colonel  Massey,  at  Gloucester,  and  to  her  hus¬ 
band,  to  whom  she  wrote :  “For  what  they  lay  upon 
me  as  being  your  wife,  I  think  it  more  happiness 
to  me,  if  I  did  suffer  all  that  any  man  can  lay  upon 
me,  in  being  your  wife,  than  if  I  were  the  wife  of 
any  man  breathing  and  did  enjoy  all  the  pleasures 
of  the  world.  This  I  cannot  but  say,  because  I  am 
likely  to  suffer.  Dear  Sir,  be  not  too  much  troubled 
for  me  or  your  children.” 

From  the  correspondence  already  given,  it  will 
be  seen  that  Sir  Robert  was  not  likely  to  trouble 
himself  overmuch  ;  nevertheless,  uncertain  whether 
he  had  received  her  first  letter,  she  wrote  four  days 
later  to  assure  him  that  “we  are  all  very  cheerful 
and  not  afraid,”  although  Lord  Herbert  had  com¬ 
manded  six  hundred  men  and  two  pieces  of  ordnance 
to  come  against  her,  “  which  some  say  will  be  at 
Brampton  to-morrow,  and  some,  next  week.” 

Again  the  attack  was  deferred,  although  for  what 
reason  is  not  clear.  Perhaps  the  temporary  successes 
of  Prince  Rupert  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Oxford 
may  have  drawn  off  the  Royalist  forces  from  Here¬ 
fordshire  to  join  his  bands.  Once  more  Lady  Harley 
could  draw  breath ;  but  she  relaxed  none  of  her 
precautions,  and  took  this  opportunity  of  begging 
Colonel  Massey  to  spare  her  a  veteran  soldier  to 
regulate  her  garrison,  which  was  nominally  under 
the  control  of  her  son  Robin,  a  boy  of  seventeen. 
Colonel  Massey  sent  an  honest  and  experienced 


74 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


sergeant,  who,  like  most  of  his  fellows  at  that  time, 
had  learned  his  trade  in  the  German  wars.  On  the 
same  day  on  which  Lady  Harley  wrote  to  tell  her 
son  of  his  arrival,  she  wrote  to  Sir  Robert :  “  I  pray 
you  to  let  Brill  make  me  a  plain  black  silk  gown 
of  as  cheap  a  stuff  as  it  is  possible,  without  lace, 
for  I  cannot  send  to  any  town  for  anything.  My 
Lady  Vere’s  measure  for  bigness  will  serve  me.” 

It  was  not  only  the  Royalist  ladies  who  had  the 
power  to  bind  faithful  knights  to  their  service ;  a 
young  Mr.  Moore  at  this  crisis  seems  to  have  been 
of  great  assistance  to  Lady  Harley,  and  there  is  a 
letter  from  a  certain  “  Priam  Davis  ”  to  his  cousin, 
Captain  Edward  Harley,  which  breathes  all  the 
devotion  of  romance.  Priam  Davis  had  been  sent 
by  Lady  Plarley  to  Gloucester  with  a  message  for 
Colonel  Massey  that  some  Royalist  forces  were  at 
Leominster,  very  poorly  armed  and  easily  to  be 
captured.  Having  done  his  errand,  Priam  was  about 
to  leave  Gloucester,  “  having  an  injunction  to  return 
with  all  possible  speed  to  your  noble  mother,  with 
whom,  had  I  a  thousand  lives,  I  would — so  far  as  I 
know  mine  own  heart — lay  them  all  down  in  her 
service  and  defence.” 

Lady  Harley  had  just  lost  a  protector  in  her 
second  son,  Robin,  who  went  to  join  his  brother 
Edward  in  June.  She  could  not  refuse  her  sons  to 
the  service  of  their  country  ;  and  as  Edward  had 
expressed  a  wish  for  his  brother’s  company,  she  was 
well  pleased  that  they  should  be  together,  although 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


75 


the  parting  seemed  to  bring  back  all  that  she  had 
suffered  when  her  eldest  son  left  her.  “  That  you 
left  me  with  sorrow  when  you  went  last  from 
Brampton,  I  believe,”  she  wrote  to  Ned  on  the  last 
day  of  June,  “for  I  think,  with  comfort  I  think  of  it, 
that  you  are  not  only  a  child,  but  one  with  childlike 
affections  to  me,  and  I  know  you  have  so  much 
understanding  that  you  did  well  weigh  the  condition 
I  was  in  ;  but  I  believe  it,  your  leaving  of  me  was 
more  sorrow  than  my  condition  could  be ;  but  I 
hope  the  Lord  will  in  mercy  give  you  to  me  again, 
for  you  are  both  a  Joseph  and  a  Benjamin  to  me, 
and,  dear  Ned,  long  to  see  me.”  There  is  a  charac¬ 
teristic  touch  in  the  postscript  :  “  I  am  confident 
you  will  hate  all  plundering  and  unmercifulness.” 

In  another  part  of  the  letter  is  a  sentence  which 
strikes  curiously  upon  the  ear:  “All  Lancashire  is 
cleared,  only  Lathom  House.”  Lathom  House  was 
defended  by  one  as  brave  and  spirited  as  Lady 
Harley — a  descendant  of  those  Huguenots  with  whom 
the  Puritans  had  so  much  in  common,  and  it  was  a 
cruel  irony  of  fate  to  array  such  women  on  opposite 
sides.  But  the  war  had  parted  friends  and  kin : 
Lord  Conway  had  just  quarrelled  with  his  sister. 
The  cause  does  not  appear,  but  Lady  Harley  speaks 
with  grief  of  a  letter  that  he  had  sent  her. 

Towards  the  end  of  July,  1643,  Brampton  Bryan 
Castle  was  surrounded  by  Royalist  forces  under 
Sir  William  Vavasour  and  Colonel  Lingcn.  On 
July  25th — “a  day  on  v, hich  Lady  Harley  and  her 


76 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


young  children  were  engaged  in  prayer  and  humilia¬ 
tion  for  the  mercy  of  God  to  avert  the  dreadful 
judgement  then  justly  feared  ” — the  siege  began.  It 
is  painful  to  have  to  confess  it,  but  the  cavaliers  did 
not  “  play  the  game  ”  in  a  sportsmanlike  way.  That 
their  first  victim  was  “  a  poor  aged  blind  man  who 
was  without  provocation  killed  in  the  street  ”  may 
have  been  the  result  of  a  chance  shot — his  misfortune, 
and  not  their  fault  ;  but  nothing  can  be  said  to 
excuse  them  for  poisoning  bullets  (one  of  which 
killed  the  castle  cook),  or  for  poisoning  the  stream 
that  supplied  the  village  with  water.  The  latter 
proceeding  did  not  affect  the  garrison,  as  during 
their  last  respite  Lady  Harley  had  taken  measures 
for  water  to  be  brought  into  “  the  green  court,” 
within  the  castle  walls. 

But  there  were  others  on  the  king’s  side  who 
were  more  chivalrous.  George  Goring,  lying  in  the 
Tower  under  the  custody  of  Sir  Robert  Harley, 
wrote  to  his  father,  Lord  Goring,  who  was  then  with 
the  Court  at  Oxford,  to  ask  that  Lady  Harley,  her 
children,  and  servants,  might  be  allowed  to  leave 
Brampton,  and  pass  safely  to  London,  “  without  any 
violence  to  their  persons,  or  any  plundering  of  these 
horses  or  necessaries  which  she  takes  for  her 
journey.”  “  I  have  received  such  noble  and  civil 
usage  from  Sir  Robert  Harley  since  I  came  under 
his  command,”  explains  Goring,  “  that  I  am  very 
happy  to  have  this  occasion  offered  of  making  some 
return  to  him,  though  the  quality,  sex,  and  age  of 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


77 


these  persons  for  whom  I  solicit,  does  merit  all  fair 
regard  for  their  own  sakes.” 

Probably  in  consequence  of  Goring’s  mediation, 
one  Sir  John  Scudamore  now  appears  on  the  scene, 
sent  by  the  king  to  make  terms  with  Lady  Harley. 
But  neither  his  fair  words  nor  his  artful  allusions  to 
“  the  pitiful  cries  of  the  poor  people  of  this  neighbour¬ 
hood  against  the  ill  counsel  your  Ladyship  hath 
followed  to  their  and  your  own  misery,”  had  any 
effect  upon  the  chatelaine  of  Brampton  Bryan.  The 
famous  Countess  of  Dunbar,  when  besieged  in  her 
castle,  assailed  the  English  with  coarse  taunts  and 
jests  ;  Lady  Harley’s  replies  to  her  enemies  are  full 
of  courtesy,  yet  they  breathe  the  same  undaunted 
spirit  that  dictated  Black  Agnes’s  defiance  to 
Montagu  and  his  engines  of  war.  Finding  his  errand 
fruitless,  Sir  John  returned  to  Court,  with  a  last 
warning — intended,  perhaps,  to  appeal  to  the 
thriftiness  of  a  good  housewife — that  after  such  a 
refusal  of  the  king’s  mercy,  did  she  afterwards  repent 
she  and  all  her  garrison  must  sue  for  pardons  under 
the  Great  Seal,  “  which  will  not  be  without  charge 
and  trouble.” 

For  six  weeks  the  castle  defied  the  besiegers,  at 
the  end  of  which  time  the  operations  in  and  about 
the  Forest  of  Dean  obliged  Vavasour  and  Lingen  to 
hurry  their  forces  towards  Gloucester.  They  left 
desolation  behind  them.  Brampton  church,  rectory, 
and  village  were  destroyed,  together  with  all  the 
outbuildings  belonging  to  the  castle  and  the  mill 


78 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


which  stood  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  Lady 
Harley  wrote  a  short  letter  to  tell  her  son  of  her 
deliverance,  and  to  ask  whether  she  had  better  stay 
where  she  was  or  remove  elsewhere. 

Now,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  Sir  Robert  was  anxious 
that  his  wife  should  leave  Brampton,  and  she  longed 
to  do  so,  but,  as  she  wrote  to  Brill,  “  there  was  no 
stirring  without  a  convoy.”  “  Present  my  service 
to  Lady  Vere,  the  best  and  wisest  woman  I  know. 
Be  careful  of  yourself,  and  the  Lord  bless  you, 
and,  dear  Brill,  long  to  see  your  affectionate  mother.” 
It  was  the  last  letter  that  Brill  was  to  receive 
from  her. 

While  Lady  Harley  waited  through  the  first  days 
of  October  for  directions  from  her  husband  about 
her  journey,  her  enemies  began  to  threaten  her  once 
more.  At  Hereford  and  at  Leominster  the  Royalists 
were  gathering,  and  Colonel  Massey  could  spare  but 
eight  men,  a  barrel  of  powder,  and  a  small  quantity 
of  match,  to  strengthen  her  defences.  “  My  trust 
is  only  in  my  God,  Who  never  yet  failed  me,”  she 
wrote  to  Ned.  She  was  very  ill  with  one  of  the 
severe  colds  to  which  she  had  always  been  subject, 
and  hoped  that  “  the  Lord  would  be  merciful  ”  and 
give  her  health,  as  it  was  “  an  ill  time  to  be  sick  in.” 
“  My  dear  Ned,  I  pray  God  bless  you,  and  give  me 
the  comfort  of  seeing  you,  for  you  are  the  comfort 
of  your  most  affectionate  mother.”  To  her  husband, 
a  week  later,  she  wrote  in  much  the  same  strain, 
finding  consolation  in  the  thought  that  all  the  children 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


79 


were  well,  and  praying  for  “  a  comfortable  meeting  ” 
with  him. 

On  October  29th  Samuel  Moore,  whose  presence 
had  been  such  a  support  to  Lady  Harley  in  her 
trials,  wrote  to  Richard  Sankey — apparently  a  friend 
of  the  family — begging  him  to  acquaint  Sir  Robert 
with  Lady  Harley’s  dangerous  condition.  On  the 
Friday — two  days  previously — her  cough  had  hindered 
her  from  sleeping,  but,  “  having  taken  something  to 
stay  it,  she  rested  and  was  pretty  well  ”  until  eleven 
o’clock  on  Saturday  morning,  when  she  'fell  into 
“  a  fit,  and  was  seized  with  apoplexy,  lethargy,  and 
convulsions.”  When  Doctor  Wright  came,  she  was 
unconscious,  but  with  his  help  she  regained  her  senses, 
and  at  four  in  the  afternoon  gave  hopes  of  recovery. 
In  the  early  hours  of  the  following  morning — the  time 
at  which  the  fatal  change  generally  takes  place — 
there  was  a  relapse,  and  Wright — “  the  careful 
doctor” — thought  it  best  that  Lady  Harley’s  husband 
and  son  should  be  warned  of  her  danger.  “If  the 
Lord  should  take  the  sweet  lady,  it  is  necessary 
there  should  be  a  head  of  the  family.  In  my 
judgement  the  Colonel  [Edward  Harley]  had  best 
come,”  which  looks  as  if  Mr.  Moore  did  not  hold  a 
very  high  opinion  of  Sir  Robert’s  usefulness  in 
an  emergency. 

On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  Mr.  Moore 
despatched  a  second  messenger,  whom  he  had  kept 
waiting  in  case  there  should  be  any  change  in  Lady 
Harley’s  condition.  The  change  had  come,  and  “at 


8o 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


six  o’clock  this  Sabbath  day,”  writes  the  trusty  friend, 
“  the  sweet  lady’s  soul  went  to  keep  the  eternal 
Sabbath  in  Heaven  where  she  can  never  be  besieged.” 

#  * 

* 

With  Lady  Harley’s  death  the  story  should  come 
to  an  end  ;  but  some  of  those  who  have  read  this 
account  of  her  trials  and  her  devotion  may  care  to 
know  what  became  of  those  whom  she  loved  when 
she  was  taken  away  from  them. 

Acting  at  Sir  Robert’s  request,  Doctor  Wright 
and  Mr.  Moore  continued  to  hold  the  castle  ;  but  in 
spite  of  a  gallant  defence,  they  were  obliged  to  yield 
to  Sir  Michael  Woodhouse  in  April,  1644.  Only  two 
barrels  of  powder  were  then  left  to  the  garrison, 
but  they  had  provisions  for  a  year.  The  castle  was 
destroyed.  Three  of  Sir  Robert’s  children — Thomas, 
Dorothy,  and  Margaret — were  taken  prisoners,  but 
they  were  soon  sent  on  to  Colonel  Massey  at 
Gloucester,  the  kindly  Sir  John  Scudamore  once 
more  intervening,  and  thence  they  travelled  to 
their  father  in  London. 

Sir  Robert  consoled  himself  for  the  loss  of  wife 
and  home  in  the  congenial  employment  of  destroying 
the  art  treasures  of  Westminster  Abbey,  Whitehall, 
Greenwich,  Canterbury,  and  Hampton  Court.  His 
accounts  have  been  preserved,  and  contain  such  items 
as  the  following : 

“  1644.  May. — Bills  and  receipt  for  £1  8^.  by 
Thomas  Stevens  and  others  for  taking  down  the 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


81 


angels  in  the  Abbey,  and  cleansing  out  pictures,  and 
for  cutting  out  a  crucifix  at  the  North  end  of  the 
Abbey,  and  the  pictures  at  the  conduit  leading  to 
the  new  palace,  and  for  taking  down  the  cross  at 
Whitehall,  and  for  colouring  the  boards  from  which 
the  carpenter  had  planed  off  the  pictures.” 

“  1644.  November  2. — Receipt  by  Thomas 
Gastaway  of  £2  6s.  from  Sir  Robert  Harley  for 
taking  down  the  organ  and  organ  case  at  Greenwich, 
and  for  making  a  scaffold  to  cut  out  the  Resurrection 
where  the  Kings  and  Queens  stand  in  the  Abbey 
at  Westminster,  and  for  planing  out  seven  pictures.” 

“  1645.  June  14. — Receipt  by  Richard  Culmer 
of  £8  1 2s.  2d.  from  Sir  Robert  Harley,  being  the 
proceeds  of  the  burning  of  the  embroidery  called 
The  Glory  belonging  to  the  high  altar  of  Canterbury 
Cathedral.” 

The  accounts  include  payment  for  nearly  two 
thousand  feet  of  new  white  glass  to  replace  the 
stained  windows  of  the  Abbey,  St.  Margaret’s 
Church,  Greenwich  Palace  Chapel,  and  Hampton 
Court  Chapel. 

Like  many  others  who  had  begun  by  throwing 
themselves  heart  and  soul  into  the  cause  of  the 
Parliament,  Sir  Robert  soon  found  himself  unable 
to  approve  of  the  lengths  to  which  his  party  was 
going.  He  withdrew  from  public  life,  and  after 
spending  some  years  of  the  Commonwealth  in 
London,  settled  in  Ludlow  in  1652,  having  been  re¬ 
fused  the  leave  to  take  up  his  abode  in  Shrewsbury. 

6 


82 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


His  latter  days  were  sad  and  lonely.  His  sons,  like 
himself,  were  entirely  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
ruling  powers,  and  underwent  imprisonment  and  sur¬ 
veillance  as  suspicious  characters.  His  health  was 
broken  and  his  means  were  straitened.  He  never 
revisited  Brampton  Bryan  or  attempted  to  rebuild 
his  castle,  although,  regardless  of  his  poverty,  he 
restored  the  church  and  parsonage  at  a  cost  of 
.£1,450.  There  is  a  pitiful  letter  to  his  son  Edward 
which  shows  how  little  was  left  to  him  of  his  pro¬ 
perty :  “In  my  last  I  wrote  you  I  had  but  sixpence 
left  which  I  gave  away  yesterday  at  a  fast — a 
private  family.  And  though  I  do  not  remember 
that  ever  I  gave  so  little  on  a  like  occasion,  yet  I 
never  gave  more,  for  it  was  all  the  money  I  had.” 

There  is  a  pathetic  touch  in  a  letter  to  Brill  from 
Edward,  who  was  visiting  his  father  at  Ludlow,  and 
found  him  very  ill.  He  was  compounding  “  the 
lime  drink  ”  for  the  invalid — doubtless  with  thoughts 
of  his  mother  and  the  home-brewed  medicines  she 
used  to  keep  in  store  for  her  family.  Edward 
seems,  as  far  as  was  possible,  to  have  watched  over 
his  father’s  health,  as  Lady  Harley  had  been  wont 
to  do.  He  consulted  doctors  on  his  father’s  account, 
sending  down  numerous  remedies  which  they  pre¬ 
scribed,  and  he  procured  “Aqua  Mirabilis”  and 
“Syrup  of  July  flowers”  (query,  gilliflowers)  from 
“  my  cousin  Smith.”  He  writes  on  one  day  to  tell 
his  father  that  “  the  monthly  fast  was  kept  at 
Mr.  Nalton’s  church  very  sweetly,  where  you  wrere 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


83 


affectionately  remembered,”  and  on  another  to  say 
how  glad  he  is  to  hear  that  Sir  Robert  has  ordered 
a  sedan  as  a  means  of  taking  the  air. 

In  November,  1656,  Sir  Robert’s  troubles  came  to 
an  end.  He  was  buried  at  Brampton  Bryan  beside 
his  wife,  and  there  is  a  memorandum  in  Edward’s 
writing  of  the  various  preparations  to  be  made  for 
the  funeral.  Sir  Robert’s  linen,  as  appears  from 
another  memorandum,  was  distributed  among  his 
poor  relations — an  act  of  kindness  in  which  it  is  easy 
to  recognise  the  work  of  Lady  Harley’s  son. 

After  her  mother’s  death  Brill  remained  with  Lady 
Vere,  sharing  her  trials,  although  she  seems  some¬ 
times  to  have  been  with  Sir  Robert.  She  sends  a 
box  of  dried  oranges  in  the  midst  of  their  troubles  to 
comfort  her  brother,  who  was  still  as  fond  of  sweets 
as  in  his  college  days,  and  corresponds  with  him  on 
every  opportunity.  In  1652  we  find  Colonel  Edward 
Harley  and  his  brother  Robert  gravely  discussing 
the  proposals  of  Mr.  James  Stanley  (grandson  of  the 
Earl  of  Derby)  for  their  sister ;  and  as  they  approved 
of  the  marriage,  it  took  place  in  the  summer,  to 
the  great  satisfaction  of  all  concerned.  Affection¬ 
ate  letters  and  messages  passed  between  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Stanley  and  Sir  Robert  and  his  sons.  Good 
Doctor  Wright  was  still  at  Ludlow,  and  able  to 
take  an  interest — not  very  delicately  expressed — in 
the  bride’s  happiness.  Her  married  life  was  not  of 
long  duration  :  James  Stanley  died  in  August,  1658. 

Edward’s  kindness  to  the  desolate  widow  was,  as 


84 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


his  sister  Dorothy  bore  witness,  “  extraordinary,  but 
suitable  to  his  constant  practice.”  A  piteous  little 
note  to  him  from  Brill  apologises  for  her  delay  in 
writing,  as  her  journeys  and  her  troubles  have  kept 
her  from  giving  an  account  of  herself.  She  will  be 
only  too  thankful  to  accept  his  kind  offer  of  taking 
her  into  his  house  rather  than  live  by  herself  through 
the  winter,  if  he  can  assure  her  that  it  will  not 
inconvenience  his  family  ;  and  she  will  pay  whatever 
he  and  his  wife  think  fit  for  her  board  and  lodging. 
She  was  kindly  received  by  her  sister-in-law,  Mary 
Harley  (ntfe  Button),  whose  children — “your  two 
jewels,”  as  Brill  calls  them — were  doubtless  a  great 
comfort  to  her.  Before  long  she  had  to  console 
Edward  for  the  loss  of  his  wife,  who  died  in  1659. 
A  year  later  Sir  Edward  Massey  writes  to  Colonel 
Edward  Harley :  “It  has  pleased  God  to  take  out  of 
this  life  your  beloved  sister,  Madame  Stanley,”  who, 
like  her  mother,  had  passed  away  on  a  Sunday. 
“  She  is  embalmed  and  lieth  at  Lincoln  House  [the 
residence  of  her  mother-in-law],  in  that  decent  sort 
and  right  as  a  much  lamented  mourning-hearse  of 
her  condition  and  quality  doth  justly  claim  there 
by  that  honoured  family.” 

There  is  no  space  here  to  follow  the  story  of 
Lady  Harley’s  best  beloved  son,  but  it  may  be  said 
that  he  showed  himself  worthy  of  such  a  mother.  By 
the  time  of  the  Restoration  King  Charles  II.  had  no 
more  loyal  subject  than  Colonel  Edward  Harley,  who 
was  appointed  Governor  of  Dunkirk.  His  energy 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


85 


in  providing  the  garrison  with  victuals  and  stores,  in 
guarding  against  surprises  from  without,  and  against 
plots — chiefly  those  of  the  Capuchin  brothers — 
within  the  town,  recalls  the  courage  and  resourceful¬ 
ness  of  Lady  Harley. 

All  the  differences  with  her  brother  which  had 
caused  Lady  Harley  so  much  grief  seem  to  have 
been  smoothed  away  as  the  current  of  events 
gradually  drew  together  the  moderate  men  of  both 
sides ;  and  we  find  Viscount  Conway  and  Kilulta 
maintaining  an  intimate  and  diverting  correspondence 
with  her  son.  Like  his  sister,  Lord  Conway  knew 
something  of  cookery  and  medicine,  or  thought  that 
he  did,  and  he  also  dabbled  in  science.  He  advises 
Edward  as  to  the  best  manner  of  making  war  and 
of  making  lamprey  pies,  as  well  as  on  the  choice  of 
books :  “  I  will  advise  you  not  to  read  the  book 
that  defends  the  lawfulness  for  a  man  to  beat  his 
wife.  It  is  a  godly  man  that  writes  the  book  and 
he  brags  much  of  God  and  His  assistance ;  but  if 
he  had  been  assisted  either  by  God  or  the  Devil, 
he  must  have  written  a  better  book.” 

A  long  letter  on  the  specific  gravity  of  water  and 
the  results  of  boiling  it,  and  upon  the  question  of 
giving  quarter  to  an  enemy,  is  followed  by  one  on 
religious  topics.  When  Edward  is  taken  ill,  his  uncle 
is  anxious  to  know  “  how  you  found  the  ginger 
operated  with  you,  or  whether  you  used  other 
remedies.”  Edward  had  been  talking  over  the 
question  of  boiling  water  with  his  doctor,  and  had 


86 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


come,  with  his  assistance,  to  the  conclusion  that  “  in 
the  much  boiling  the  thinnest  and  finest  parts  of 
the  water  go  away  and  leave  only  the  most  gross, 
unwholesome,  and  earthy  parts  ” — a  theory  which 
apparently  found  no  favour  with  Lord  Conway. 
“  There  are  not  in  the  world  greater  fools  than 
philosophers,  nor  greater  knaves  than  physicians, 
unless  it  be  the  priests  of  this  age,  who  are  both.” 

Among  the  Hartley  manuscripts  is  a  paper  in 
Edward’s  writing,  headed,  “  A  Catalogue  of  some  of 
these  many  tender  mercies  my  God  hath  vouchsafed 
unto  me.”  It  is  a  curious  list,  including  such  mis¬ 
cellaneous  items  as  “  Deliverance  from  the  chincough 
and  measles  when  I  was  very  young.  From  the 
smallpox  twice.  From  drowning,  when  I  fell  into 
the  water  at  Brampton,  and  was  taken  out  by  a 
dumb  woman.  That  in  Oxford  I  was  not  given  up 
to  the  evils  of  that  place.  That  in  London  I  was 
not  seduced  by  evil  company.  That  in  the  war 
God  gave  me  any  courage  and  esteem  amongst  men. 
That  God  mercifully  denied  my  requests  concerning 
a  wife,  showing  me  greater  favour  in  the  denial 
than  if  He  had  granted  my  desire.  That  God  made 
me  by  a  dream  an  instrument  to  deliver  my  father’s 
house  from  being  robbed,  the  window  being  broken. 
October  1660.” 

The  entry  about  the  wife  does  not  sound  com¬ 
plimentary  to  the  lady  on  whom  Edward  Harley 
had  first  bestowed  his  love.  Perhaps  there  is  a 
suggestion  of  “  sour  grapes  ”  in  it ;  but  under  the 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


87 


conventional  phrasing  there  is  much  tenderness  in 
the  opening  sentences  of  the  “  catalogue  ” :  “  That 
my  parents  were  noble,  wise,  and  above  all,  godly. 
.  .  .  That  my  God  did  mercifully  continue  me  dear 
and  blessed  mother’s  life  for  several  years,  to  teach 
me  in  my  youth  to  remember  my  Creator.  That 
my  father,  who  was  aged  when  I  was  very  tender, 
was  not  cut  off  from  me  and  my  brethren  and 
sisters.  .  .  .  That  the  Lord  gave  my  parents  hearts 
to  give  me  liberal  education,  and  inclined  their 
affection  to  be  very  tender  towards  me.  That  my 
brethren  and  sisters  and  I  love  one  another,  which, 
oh  Lord,  be  pleased  to  continue  as  becomes  Christians, 
especially  to  watch  against  the  sins  of  each  other.” 
Further  on  is  an  entry  which  recalls  some  of  the 
passages  in  his  mother’s  letters :  “  That  my  God 
never  forsook  me  in  any  distress,  but  hath  heard 
my  prayers  in  all  trials  to  direct,  support,  deliver 
me.”  The  mention  of  Sir  Robert  as  still  alive 
shows  that  the  catalogue  must  have  been  drawn 
up  before  1656 — probably  about  1651.  Brilliana 
Harley’s  son  had  learned  her  lesson  well  if  he 
could  write  and  think  thus  in  poverty,  sickness, 
and  disgrace  with  the  ruling  powers. 

Whilst  reading  Lady  Harley’s  correspondence, 
one  can  hardly  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  resemblance 
between  her  and  Dame  Mary,  the  wife  of  Sir  Ralph 
Verney,  who  has  become  a  dear  and  honoured  friend 
to  many  of  us  since  the  publication  of  the  Verney 
Letters.  Both  possessed  in  a  high  degree  that 


88 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


courage  which  is  peculiarly  feminine — the  courage 
that,  while  counting  the  cost,  is  ready  to  face  all  and 
endure  all  without  a  murmur,  for  the  sake  of  others. 
To  a  man  in  his  need  comes  the  fierce  joy  of  battle, 
the  exhilaration  of  the  struggle  ;  but  to  a  woman  only 
the  dust  and  the  weariness.  By  an  accident  of  fate 
Brilliana  Harley’s  undaunted  spirit  was  called  to 
sustain  a  beleaguered  garrison,  as  Mary  Verney’s 
to  console  a  band  of  exiles  ;  the  one  overcame  her 
foes  by  outward  resources,  the  other  by  shrewdness 
and  gentleness,  yet  the  same  strong  enduring  heart 
was  in  each,  within  a  very  weak  body.  Both  dropped 
down,  worn  out  in  the  midst  of  their  labours,  and 
both  were  mourned  by  husbands  who  had  seemed 
to  take  very  inadequate  care  of  them  during  their 
lives. 

Perhaps  justice  has  scarcely  been  rendered  to 
Sir  Robert  Harley  in  these  pages.  His  letters  to  his 
wife  must  have  been  destroyed  when  the  castle  was 
taken,  and  thus  he  never  has  an  opportunity  of 
speaking  for  himself.  Every  man  has  two  faces — 
one  for  the  world  and  one  for  the  woman  whom  he 
loves  ;  and  it  may  be  that  the  face  he  kept  for  his 
Brilliana  satisfied  her  desires. 

For  the  rest,  the  foundation  of  every  true  woman’s 
love  is  not  the  headlong  passion  of  novelists  and 
poets,  but  a  mother’s  tenderness.  He  whom  she 
loves  is  something  to  be  consoled,  to  be  made  com¬ 
fortable,  to  be  kept  out  of  harm  at  all  costs — a  child 
of  larger  growth,  although  she  may  at  the  same  time 


A  FAITHFUL  WIFE. 


89 


have  a  deep  respect  for  him.  The  more  unselfish 
she  is,  the  more  inconsiderate  he  will  naturally  be  ; 
and  the  more  anxiety  he  may  give  her,  the  stronger 
grows  her  feeling  of  protecting  compassion.  Sorrows 
and  trials  may  affect  both  equally,  but  her  one 
thought  will  be  to  shield  him  so  far  as  she  may, — 
her  chief  conviction,  that  he  suffers  more  than  herself. 
No  doubt  Lady  Harley  credited  Sir  Robert  with 
enduring  far  more  from  the  siege  of  his  castle 
when  he  was  in  Westminster  than  she  did  in  the 
midst  of  her  garrison.  If  in  a  moment  of  over¬ 
powering  weariness  she  might  reproach  him  with  not 
realising  how  she  was  beset,  she  would  have  been 
the  first  to  declare  to  the  world — as  she  did  to  her 
son — that  her  husband’s  care  and  thought  for  her 
were  her  chief  support.  Whether  it  is  well  or  ill 
for  mankind,  it  is  a  happy  thing  for  womankind 
that,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  “  the  king  can  do 


no  wrong. 


III. 

SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 

Blanche  Somerset  (Lady  Arundell  of  Wardour) 
(d.  1649). 

Anne  Coventry  (Lady  Savile) 

(d.  1662). 

Mary  Hawtrey  (Lady  Bankes) 

(d.  1661). 

Elizabeth  Fitzgerald 
(d.  circa  1724). 


91 


Ill 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 

BRILLIANA  HARLEY  was  not  the  only  woman 
left  to  defend  her  husband’s  castle  during  the 
Civil  Wars.  The  name  of  Charlotte  de  la  Tremouille 
occurs  at  once  to  the  mind,  and  she  is  the  most 
prominent  among  the  heroines  of  siege.  But  a 
glance  at  contemporary  memoirs  and  at  the  few 
newspapers  of  the  time  shows  that  beleaguered  ladies 
were  almost  as  plentiful  as  in  the  age  of  the  “  Mort 
d’Arthur,”  when  the  knight  could  scarcely  ride  a 
mile  without  having  to  relieve  some  noble  chatelaine 
from  the  foes  who  had  surrounded  her  castle. 

Most  happy  were  those  whose  dwellings  were  so 
insignificant  or  so  badly  situated  that  they  were 
useless  for  military  purposes.  After  having  been 
kindly  entertained  by  a  Royalist  lady,  Prince  Rupert 
was  obliged  to  requite  her  hospitality  by  destroying 
her  castle,  since  he  could  not  spare  men  to  garrison 
it,  and  durst  not  leave  it  in  his  rear  to  be  held 
by  the  enemy.  Among  his  Sufferers  for  King 
Charles  /.,  Lloyd  mentions  Lady  Mary  Winter,  who 
defended  the  house  of  her  husband,  Sir  John  Winter, 


93 


94 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


in  the  Forest  of  Dean,  “  bidding  him  burn  it  rather 
than  the  rebels  should  have  it.” 

Of  a  like  spirit  was  Blanche,  daughter  of  Edward, 
first  Marquis  of  Worcester  and  wife  of  Lord  Arundell 
of  Wardour.  Some  account  of  the  home  of  her 
youth  and  the  order  maintained  there  by  her  father 
may  be  found  elsewhere  ;  and  readers  of  Dr.  George 
Macdonald’s  St.  George  and  St.  Michael  will  re¬ 
member  the  old  marquis.  Simple  in  the  midst  of 
all  the  state  entailed  by  his  position,  as  conspicuous 
among  the  courtiers  for  his  plain  frieze  clothes  as 
for  his  inconvenient  habit  of  speaking  the  truth  to 
his  royal  master,  he  retained  to  the  day  of  his 
death — “  poor  in  prison  whither  he  was  fetched  in 
a  cold  winter  ” — that  cheerful  serenity  which  had 
delighted  all  guests  within  the  walls  of  Raglan.  “  He 
suffered  cheerfully,”  he  told  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax, 
“  because  he  did  before  reckon  upon  it.” 

The  daughter  of  such  a  father  could  scarcely  fail 
to  have  caught  some  of  his  spirit ;  and  when  Lord 
Arundell’s  duty  to  the  king  obliged  him  to  wait 
upon  his  majesty  at  Oxford  in  the  spring  of  1643, 
he  left  Wardour  Castle  in  the  charge  of  his  wife. 
During  his  absence,  on  May  2nd  Sir  Edward 
Hungerford  appeared  before  her  gates,  demanding 
admittance  to  search  for  “  malignants.”  Lady 
Arundell  refused  to  open  to  him  upon  any  pretext ; 
whereupon  he  sent  for  a  body  of  the  Parliamentarian 
forces  under  Colonel  Strode,  and  formally  summoned 
the  castle  to  surrender. 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 


95 


The  besiegers  without  were  some  thirteen  hundred 
men.  Within  was  a  garrison  of  about  fifty  servants, 
only  one  half  of  whom  were  capable  of  bearing 
arms,  commanded  by  a  woman  who  was  well  ad¬ 
vanced  in  years  and  was  hampered  by  the  presence 
of  her  two  little  grandsons,  aged  nine  and  seven.  It 
would  have  been,  at  least,  excusable  to  yield  after 
a  parley.  But  Lady  Arundell  was  worthy  of  her 
trust,  and  her  only  reply  to  Hungerford  and  Strode 
was,  “that  she  had  a  command  from  her  lord  to 
keep  it,  which  order  she  would  obey.” 

The  besiegers  were  not  slow  in  taking  measures 
to  reduce  the  garrison.  On  the  following  day, 
having  dragged  cannon  within  musket-shot  of  the 
walls,  they  opened  fire.  Their  engineers  laid  two 
mines,  which  were  both  sprung,  and  the  bombard¬ 
ment  continued  for  six  days  and  nights.  Lady 
Arundell  defended  herself  bravely ;  and  she  was  well 
supported,  especially  by  the  women  of  the  castle, 
who  carried  ammunition  for  the  men,  and  were 
constantly  on  the  alert  to  extinguish  the  “  fiery 
missiles  ”  that  alighted  within  the  defences.  But 
no  relief  came  from  outside.  Brave  hearts  could  not 
supply  the  lack  of  numbers  or  increase  resources 
and  in  the  end  they  were  forced  to  surrender 
after  making  terms. 

To  their  lasting  disgrace,  Hungerford  and  Strode 
only  kept  to  their  agreement  so  far  as  to  spare  the 
lives  of  the  garrison.  Lady  Arundell,  her  daughter- 
in-law,  and  her  grandsons  were  made  prisoners,  and 


96 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


the  castle  and  estates  were  plundered  and  despoiled. 
The  wanton  damage  wrought  by  Christian  soldiers 
in  their  own  country  would  have  disgraced  a  horde 
of  Goths  and  Vandals.  Hungerford’s  soldiers  tore 
up  the  park  pales  to  let  out  the  deer,  felled  the 
trees  and  sold  the  timber  “  for  a  few  pence,”  and 
destroyed  the  fish  in  twelve  great  ponds  by  letting 
the  water  run  away.  Within  doors  they  broke  a 
chimneypiece  worth  ^2,000,  and  ruined  many  “rare 
pictures,  the  works  of  the  most  curious  pencils  that 
were  known  in  these  latter  times  of  the  world.” 
Finally,  they  loaded  five  carts  with  the  “richest 
hangings  and  other  furniture,"  and  carried  off  their 
spoil  and  their  captives  towards  Shaftesbury  and 
Dorchester.  Their  intention  was  to  confine  Lady 
Arundell  and  her  family  in  Bath  ;  but  as  that  town 
was  then  reeking  with  plague  and  small-pox,  the 
high-spirited  old  lady  had  no  intention  of  being 
taken  there  against  her  will.  On  reaching  Shaftes¬ 
bury  she  took  to  her  bed,  and  declined  to  leave  it 
unless  actual  force  were  used  ;  while  her  daughter- 
in-law  as  stoutly  refused  to  be  parted  from  her. 

Hungerford  and  Strode  were  furious,  but  helpless. 
To  resort  to  violence  would  be  to  incense  the  whole 
countryside  against  themselves,  and  in  these  troubled 
times  they  durst  run  no  unnecessary  risks.  So,  “  since 
they  dare  not  carry  all  to  Bath,”  says  the  Mer- 
curius  Rusticus,  “  they  resolve  to  carry  some  to 
Dorchester,  a  place  no  less  dangerous  for  the 
infection  of  schism  and  rebellion  than  Bath  for 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 


97 


the  plague  and  small-pox.”  Lady  Arundell  and 
her  daughter-in-law  were  allowed  to  remain  at 
Shaftesbury,  but  the  boys  were  sent  to  Dorchester. 

Lloyd  reckons  that  Lord  Arundell’s  loyalty  cost 
him  ^25,000.  Lady  Arundell  was  released  after 
a  while,  and  died  at  Winchester  in  1649.  Her 
portrait  shows  a  graceful,  slender  figure  with  a  some¬ 
what  affected  air,  one  hand  toying  with  the  end  of 
her  scarf,  the  other  with  a  book.  The  small  features 
scarcely  suggest  as  much  character  as  one  would 
have  expected,  but  the  mouth  is  firm. 

#  * 

# 

In  the  year  after  Lady  Arundell’s  surrender 
another  loyal  woman  was  overborne  by  circum¬ 
stances.  A  prominent  member  of  Lord  Newcastle’s 
force  during  the  northern  campaign  of  1642 — 1643 
had  been  Sir  William  Savile  of  Thornhill,  nephew 
to  the  ill-fated  Strafford.  After  the  capture  of 
Sheffield,  Savile  was  appointed  its  governor ;  but 
being  too  valuable  in  the  field  to  be  left  behind 
four  walls,  in  a  short  time  he  rejoined  the  army, 
leaving  his  wife  and  children  in  Sheffield  Castle, 
which  was  in  the  charge  of  his  deputy,  Major 
Beaumont.  He  died  suddenly  at  York  in  January, 
1644,  to  the  great  regret  of  all  who  knew  him. 

In  the  July  following,  General  Crawford,  with 
twelve  hundred  foot,  a  regiment  of  horse,  and  three 
pieces  of  ordnance,  summoned  Sheffield  Castle  to 
surrender  in  the  name  of  the  Parliament.  Major 

7 


98 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


Beaumont  was  disposed  to  make  terms,  regardless 
of  the  exhortations  and  entreaties  which  had  been 
addressed  to  him  by  Savile — “  if  the  castle  chance 
to  be  besieged,  keep  it  to  the  uttermost,  as  you 
love  me.”  But  the  widowed  Lady  Savile  was 
determined  to  carry  out  her  husband’s  last  wishes. 
The  garrison  included  a  troop  of  horse  and  two 
hundred  foot,  and  had  ten  pieces  of  artillery.  Round 
the  castle  were  a  moat  eighteen  feet  deep,  “  a  strong 
breastwork,  palisadoed,”  and  a  wall  six  feet  thick. 
It  would  be  disgraceful  to  yield  at  once,  when 
others  had  held  out  bravely  with  less  defence  ;  so 
at  her  instance  Major  Beaumont  reluctantly  defied 
the  enemy  to  do  their  worst. 

The  two  batteries  raised  by  the  besiegers,  which 
maintained  a  steady  cannonade  for  twenty-four  hours, 
had  little  effect  on  the  castle,  and  they  were  obliged 
to  send  to  General  Fairfax  for  more  artillery.  In 
the  midst  of  the  bombardment  Lady  Savile,  who 
had  been  hourly  expecting  the  birth  of  a  posthumous 
child,  was  taken  ill.  The  besiegers  refused  to  let 
doctor  or  nurse  pass  their  lines,  and  she  was  forced 
to  struggle  through  her  sorrowful  hour  with  such 
help  as  she  could  get  from  those  within  the  castle. 
But  although  a  breach  had  now  been  made  in  the 
walls,  Lady  Savile  preferred  to  die  where  she  was 
rather  than  yield.  At  this  crisis  the  soldiers 
mutinied,  and  insisted  upon  a  surrender,  “  not  so 
much  concerned  for  their  own  danger  ”  as  for 
“  the  lamentable  situation  of  this  noble  lady  ” — a 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 


99 


plea  which  any  one  who  chooses  may  believe.  On 
August  nth  besiegers  and  besieged  came  to  terms  ; 
and  on  August  12th  Lady  Savile’s  child  came 
into  a  sorrowful  and  unsettled  world.  Happily  for 
himself,  he  did  not  long  survive  his  birth. 

Furious  as  Lady  Savile  must  have  been  to  find 
her  condition  made  the  excuse  for  capitulation, 
the  terms  granted  to  her  compare  favourably  wdth 
those  accorded  to  other  “  malignants,”  and  moreover 
they  were  faithfully  observed.  The  garrison  retired 
unmolested  with  all  the  honours  of  war  and  leave 
to  carry  away  their  property.  Lady  Savile  and  her 
children  and  servants,  with  a  suitable  guard,  were 
at  liberty  to  retire  to  Thornhill,  the  old  home  of  the 
Saviles  ;  and  with  a  consideration  for  her  state  of  health 
far  more  real  in  all  probability  than  that  evinced  by 
Major  Beaumont’s  soldiers,  it  was  expressly  stated 
that  she  need  not  begin  her  journey  “  until  she  or 
they  be  in  a  condition  to  remove  themselves.”  * 
Unbroken  in  spirit  by  the  terrors  of  the  siege 
or  by  the  loss  of  Thornhill — which  was  accidentally 
burned  down  by  a  Royalist  detachment  after  its 
surrender  to  the  Parliamentary  forces — Lady  Savile 
played  a  leading  part  in  the  stirring  events  of  the 
next  sixteen  years.  She  is  said  to  have  been 
responsible  for  the  stratagem  by  which  Langdale 

*  One  of  the  children  who  went  with  Lady  Savile  when  her 
party  left  Sheffield  “  with  coaches,  horses,  and  waggons,”  was 
her  eldest  son,  George,  afterwards  Marquis  of  Halifax  ("  the 
Trimmer  ”). 


IOO 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


and  the  Scots  surprised  Pontefract  in  1648,  and  for 
the  device  by  which  the  Parliamentarian  general, 
Rainsborough,  was  kidnapped  within  his  own  lines 
as  a  counter-hostage  for  Langdale,  who  had  been 
captured  at  Nottingham.  Rainsborough,  instead  of 
submitting  peacefully  to  be  carried  off,  struggled 
with  his  captors,  and  was  accidentally  killed,  thus 
defeating  their  plans  ;  and  then  Lady  Savile  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  arranging  Langdale’s  escape  to  the 
Continent.  The  ruling  powers  detested  her,  all  the 
more  because  they  could  never  manage  to  convict 
her  of  treason,  in  spite  of  the  numerous  intrigues  of 
which  she  was  the  moving  spirit.  Undaunted  by 
threats  or  by  fear  of  detection,  Lady  Savile,  having 
married  a  second  husband,  continued  to  plot  and 
scheme  for  the  good  cause,  to  assist  distressed 
cavaliers,  and  to  relieve  the  suffering  clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England  until  the  Restoration.  It  is 
melancholy  to  find  that  the  brave  heart  which  faced 
death  and  privation  without  flinching  was  broken 
by  grief  and  shame  at  the  disorders  of  the  new 
reign.  In  1662  she  “gave  up  her  great  and  innocent 
soul  to  God,”  leaving  behind  her  the  character  of 
“  a  Person  of  incomparable  Affection  to  His  Majesty, 
of  singular  Prudence,  and  of  great  Interest  and 
Power.” 

*  * 

* 

Perhaps  the  best  figure  to  be  set  in  contrast  to 
that  of  Brilliana  Harley  is  that  of  Mary  Bankes, 
the  defender  of  Corfe  Castle.  Corfe  Castle,  like 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 


IOI 


Brampton  Bryan,  withstood  one  siege,  and  was 
forced  to  yield  to  a  second.  Like  Brampton  Bryan, 
it  was  laid  in  ruins  by  its  captors,  and  it  has  never 
been  rebuilt.  In  some  ways  we  know  more  of 
Lady  Bankes  than  of  Lady  Harley.  The  Mercurius 
Rusticus  gives  a  minute  account  of  the  first  siege, 
and  there  are  allusions  to  it  in  many  contemporary 
writers.  On  the  other  hand,  most  of  the  Bankes 
letters  and  papers  were  lost  or  destroyed  when  the 
castle  was  taken,  and  thus  Lady  Bankes  never  reveals 
her  personality  to  us,  as  does  Lady  Harley. 

“  Brave  Dame  Mary,”  as  she  is  called  in  the  Isle  of 
Purbcck,  was  the  only  daughter  of  Ralph  Hawtrey, 
of  Ruislip,  in  Middlesex.  Her  husband,  Sir  John 
Bankes,  Attorney-General  and  afterwards  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas,  was  a  man  of  unusual 
wisdom  and  moderation,  and  earned  the  common 
reward  of  far-seeing  persons  by  being  derided  for 
“  timidity  ”  at  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War.  Lloyd 
says  of  him :  “  He  attained  to  great  experience 
by  soliciting  suits  for  others  ;  and  a  great  estate  by 
managing  those  of  his  own,  laughing  at  many  at 
last  that  smiled  at  him  at  first,  leaving  many  behind 
him  in  learning  that  he  found  before  him  in  time. 
He  was  one  whom  the  Collar  of  S.S.S.  worn  by  Judges 
and  other  Magistrates,  became  very  well,  if  it  had 
its  name  from  Sanctus ,  Simon ,  Simplicius ,  no  man 
being  more  seriously  pious,  none  more  singly  honest. 
A  Gentleman  he  was  of  singular  modesty,  of  the 
ancient  freedom,  plainheartedness  and  integrity  of 


102 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


mind ;  very  grave  and  severe  in  his  deportment, 
yet  very  affable.” 

After  the  king  left  London  in  the  January  of  1642, 
when  his  attempt  to  seize  Kimbolton  and  the  five 
members  had  failed,  Sir  John  Bankes  remained 
behind  to  attend  to  his  duties.  He  was  respected 
by  both  sides,  and  found  no  difficulty  in  staying 
at  his  post,  until  it  was  represented  to  him  that  by 
his  residence  in  London  he  seemed  to  countenance 
the  measures  of  the  rebels.  He  then  went  to  York 
to  join  the  king,  who  was  summoning  his  counsellors 
about  him.  The  plain  speaking  of  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice  was  not  relished  at  Court,  and  his  letters 
speak  of  “  the  hazards  he  has  run  of  the  King’s 
indignation  in  a  high  measure.”  After  the  battle 
of  Edgehill,  when  Charles  established  himself  at 
Oxford,  Sir  John  Bankes  came  in  his  train,  and 
took  up  his  abode  in  the  house  of  Sir  Robert 
Jenkinson,  who  had  married  his  second  daughter, 
Mary.  “  His  prudent  and  valiant  lady,  with  her 
numerous  and  noble  offspring,”  says  Lloyd,  “  retired 
to  her  house,  Corfe  Castle,”  which  had  been  pur¬ 
chased  by  Sir  John  from  Lady  Elizabeth  Coke 
and  her  daughter,  Lady  Purbeck. 

Those  who  have  wandered  among  the  ruins  of 
Corfe  Castle  and  seen  the  extent  of  its  walls  and 
the  massiveness  of  its  towers,  may  readily  imagine 
it  in  the  day  of  its  pride.  The  illustrations  in  the 
third  edition  of  Hutchins’  Dorset  give  some  idea  of 
its  past  strength  and  its  present  majesty.  Situated 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  103 

on  a  steep  hill,  it  was  connected  with  the  road  by 
a  narrow  bridge,  defended  by  a  gateway  with  two 
towers.  Those  who  passed  the  gateway  found 
themselves  within  the  first,  or  lower,  ward,  defended 
by  eight  strong  towers,  and  separated  from  the 
second  ward  by  a  strong  gateway  with  a  portcullis. 
In  the  second  ward  were  the  dungeon  tower  and  the 
prison  chapel.  A  long  flight  of  steps  led  from  it 
to  the  third  and  fourth  wards,  separated  from  the 
lower  ward  by  a  steep  rampart  and  a  strong  wall. 
Here  were  all  the  principal  buildings  :  the  great 
King’s  Tower,  the  Queen’s  Tower  (where  the  lady 
of  the  castle  lived),  the  kitchen,  the  chapel,  and 
the  offices.  After  tracing  out,  so  far  as  is  possible, 
the  outlines  of  the  apartments,  the  visitor  to  Corfe 
Castle  is  chiefly  perplexed  to  know  how  our 
ancestors  managed  to  live  in  so  small  a  space. 
The  modern  convention  of  six  hundred  cubic  feet 
of  air  to  each  person  was  unknown  to  those  who 
occupied  the  room  still  pointed  out  as  the  chief 
bedchamber,  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how 
Lady  Bankes  and  her  daughters  ever  conveyed 
themselves  and  their  best  dresses  (“  the  crimson 
satin  petticoat  with  stomacher  and  sleeves  lined 
with  six  silver  laces”  and  other  braveries,  so 
pathetically  enumerated  in  the  list  of  plunder  from 
the  castle)  up  and  down  such  narrow  stairs,  or 
were  able  to  turn  round  in  the  rooms  without 
sending  everything  flying  out  of  the  windows. 

Lady  Bankes’  portrait  is  still  preserved  by  her 


io4  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

descendants.  It  must  have  been  painted  after  the 
siege,  as  she  holds  the  keys  of  the  castle  and 
wears  a  mourning-headdress — the  black  veil  with 
a  triangular  peak  over  the  forehead,  such  as  is 
seen  in  the  portrait  of  the  widowed  Henrietta 
Maria.  The  face  is  not  handsome,  the  nose  and 
chin  being  too  decided  for  beauty.  But  the  clear, 
steadfast  eyes  and  wide  brow  give  an  air  of  great 
strength  and  serenity,  and  there  is  something 
characteristic  about  the  firm  clasp  of  the  large, 
well-shaped  hand  over  the  ponderous  keys. 

It  is  not  clear  how  many  of  her  “numerous  and 
noble  offspring  ”  were  with  her  in  the  castle.  Her 
epitaph  gives  the  names  of  only  ten  children,  and 
at  least  two  of  her  daughters  were  already  married. 
A  writer  in  Notes  and  Queries  credits  her  with 
thirteen  children,  whose  names  he  gives  ;  but  some 
of  these  must  have  died  very  young.  If,  after 
bearing  thirteen  children  and  educating  ten,  she 
had  still  the  energy  to  hold  out  her  castle  for 
three  years,  she  must  have  possessed  extraordinary 
vigour,  mental  and  bodily. 

During  the  winter  of  1642  and  the  early  spring 
of  the  following  year  Lady  Bankes  and  her  family, 
unmolested  in  their  retreat,  watched  the  storm- 
clouds  sweep  across  England  and  gradually  draw 
nearer  to  the  Isle  of  Purbeck.  One  by  one  the 
chief  towns  and  strongholds  of  Dorsetshire  fell  into 
the  hands  of  Sir  Walter  Erie  *  and  Sir  Thomas 
*  Lloyd  calls  him  Sir  William  Erie. 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  105 


Trenchard.  Dorchester,  Lyme,  Melcombe,  Poole, 
Portland  Castle,  Wareham,  and  Weymouth  all 
yielded  to  the  Parliamentarians,  “  who  wanted  this 
castle  only  to  make  the  sea-coast  their  own.” 

By  an  old  custom  the  “  Mayor  and  Barons  ”  of 
the  borough  of  Corfe  Castle  had  leave  from  the 
lord  of  the  castle  on  every  May-day  to  course  a 
stag.  The  neighbouring  woods  had  been  famous 
for  their  deer  ever  since  the  days  when  venison 
from  the  isle  was  sent  to  the  hapless  Alienor, 
sister  of  Arthur  of  Brittany,  who  had  acquired  a 
taste  for  it  in  her  long  durance  at  the  castle,  and 
the  hunt  was  usually  followed  by  all  the  gentle¬ 
men  of  Purbeck.  May-day  sports  were  specially 
abhorrent  to  the  Puritans,  but  on  this  occasion  they 
seemed  likely  to  serve  their  purpose.  What  would 
be  easier,  when  “  the  hunt  was  up  ”  and  the  castle 
gates  were  flung  hospitably  open,  than  to  march 
troops  of  horse  from  Dorchester,  to  seize  upon  the 
unarmed  cavaliers,  and  to  take  possession  of  their 
last  stronghold  ? 

Unluckily  for  the  Puritans,  some  one  got  wind 
of  their  design,  and,  sending  word  to  Corfe  Castle, 

“  spoiled  the  sport  of  that  day  ”  for  all  concerned. 
The  hunt  dispersed  in  every  direction,  and  Lady 
Bankes  closed  her  gates  and  bade  her  men  keep 
them  against  all  comers.  Thus  baffled,  some  of 
the  enemy’s  force  quietly  withdrew,  while  a  detach¬ 
ment  under  a  few  officers  came  to  the  entrance  and 
humbly  begged  leave  to  see  the  inside  of  the  castle 


io6  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

after  the  manner  of  a  party  of  Bank  Holiday 
excursionists.  Hearing  that  admittance  would  not 
be  granted  them  on  any  pretext,  some  of  the  rank 
and  file  lost  their  tempers  and  betrayed  the  whole 
scheme,  “  casting  out  words  implying  some  inten¬ 
tions  to  take  the  Castle.”  It  was  in  vain  that  their 
officers  rebuked  them  and  swore  that  nothing  in 
the  world  was  further  from  their  purpose.  Lady 
Bankes  was  warned,  and  proceeded  to  take  her 
measures  accordingly. 

Her  first  step  was  to  call  in  a  guard  for  her 
defence  ;  it  cannot  have  consisted  of  a  large  number 
of  men,  but  it  alarmed  the  neighbourhood.  “  What¬ 
soever  she  sends  out  or  sends  for  in,  is  suspected  ; 
her  ordinary  provisions  for  her  family  are  by  fame 
multiplied  and  reported  to  be  more  than  double 
what  indeed  they  were,  as  if  she  had  an  intention 
to  victual  and  man  the  Castle  against  the  forces  of 
the  two  Houses  of  Parliament.” 

The  castle  was  defended  by  four  small  pieces 
of  cannon,  which  Lady  Bankes  mounted  on  their 
carriages.  As  not  one  of  them  would  carry  more 
than  a  three-pound  bullet,  this  proceeding  need  not 
have  caused  grave  uneasiness  ;  but  the  Parliamentary 
committee  at  Poole  immediately  took  alarm,  and 
sent  to  demand  their  surrender.  Lady  Bankes 
returned  answer  that  the  pieces  were  very  necessary 
for  her  safety,  but  that  she  would  have  them 
dismounted  if  she  were  allowed  to  retain  them. 
The  commissioners  professed  themselves  willing  to 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  107 


accept  this  compromise,  and  the  household  at  the 
castle  enjoyed  peace  for  a  few  days. 

Very  early  one  morning  Lady  Bankes  was  roused 
by  the  news  that  forty  seamen  were  at  her  gates 
demanding  the  immediate  surrender  of  the  cannon. 
So  entirely  had  she  believed  that  matters  were 
settled  with  the  committee  that  she  had  only  five 
men  in  the  castle.  Summoning  them  and  her 
maidservants,  she  gave  them  her  orders,  and  then 
went  down  herself  to  the  gates  and  asked  her 
visitors  to  produce  their  warrant. 

They  handed  her  a  paper  with  the  signatures  of 
some  of  the  commissioners.  Lady  Bankes  glanced 
at  it  and  gave  a  signal  to  her  men  and  maids, 
who,  while  she  parleyed,  had  succeeded  in  mounting 
the  pieces  and  in  loading  one.  They  were  not 
expert  marksmen,  but  the  “small  thunder”  which 
followed  the  discharge  so  terrified  the  forty  valiant 
seamen  that  with  one  accord  they  took  to  their 
heels  and  ran  away. 

The  beat  of  the  drum  echoing  far  and  wide 
among  the  hills  told  the  neighbours  that  the  castle 
was  in  danger,  and  Lady  Bankes  was  soon  sur¬ 
rounded  by  “  a  considerable  guard  of  tenants  and 
friends,”  who  brought  in  arms  from  all  parts  of 
the  isle.  But  a  new  difficulty  arose.  The  commis¬ 
sioners  now  threatened  that  unless  Lady  Bankes 
gave  up  her  pieces  she  should  be  made  to  deliver 
them  by  force,  and  that  the  houses  of  all  her  allies 
should  be  burned  down  if  they  encouraged  her  to 


io8  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

resist.  The  wives  of  her  guard,  not  liking  such  a 
prospect,  hurried  to  the  castle.  “There  they  weep 
and  wring  their  hands  and  with  clamorous  oratory 
persuade  their  husbands  to  come  home,  and  not 
by  saving  others  to  expose  their  own  houses  to 
spoil  and  ruin.”  Moreover,  the  castle  was  unpro¬ 
vided  with  either  food  or  ammunition  for  a  siege, 
and  the  commissioners  intercepted  two  hundred¬ 
weight  of  powder,  and  forbade  Wareham  and  other 
neighbouring  market-towns  to  supply  Lady  Bankes 
with  provisions.  As  the  king’s  forces  were  draw¬ 
ing  near  to  Blandford,  a  strict  watch  was  kept  to 
prevent  a  messenger  passing  in  or  out  of  the  castle. 

In  this  emergency  Lady  Bankes  again  proposed 
a  compromise.  She  sent  to  the  commissioners,  and 
suggested  that  she  should  surrender  her  four  tiny 
cannon  if  they  would  allow  her  “  to  enjoy  the  Castle 
and  arms  in  it  in  peace  and  quietness,”  and  again 
they  accepted  her  proposal. 

She  knew  well  that  there  was  small  likelihood 
of  her  enemies  keeping  faith,  but  she  trusted  that 
an  appearance  of  submission  would  throw  them  off 
their  guard.  Thinking  that  the  castle  was  their 
own  whenever  they  chose  to  take  it,  and  that 
“  now  it  was  no  more  but  ask  and  have,”  the 
enemy  grew  careless  and  relaxed  their  vigilance. 
“Brave  Dame  Mary”  seized  her  opportunity.  In 
a  short  time  not  only  had  she  stored  the  castle 
with  provisions,  “  a  hundred  and  a  half  of  powder, 
and  a  quantity  of  match  proportionable,”  but  she 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  109 


had  sent  to  Prince  Rupert  to  ask  him  for  some 
experienced  commander  to  direct  her.  Like  Lady 
Harley,  she  already  had  an  old  soldier,  a  Captain 
Bond,  at  her  right  hand  to  advise  her.  Captain 
Robert  Lawrence,  the  officer  despatched  by  Prince 
Rupert,  was  known  to  her,  as  he  was  the  son  of 
Sir  Edward  Lawrence,  a  gentleman  of  the  isle  ; 
but  he  proved,  in  the  end,  a  broken  reed. 

Lady  Bankes’  preparations  were  scarcely  complete 
when  she  was  again  attacked.  The  weak  point  in  the 
situation  of  the  castle  is  that  it  is  overlooked  by 
the  hills  between  which  it  lies.  The  enemy,  having 
dragged  two  pieces  of  ordnance  to  the  heights, 
imagined  that  the  castle  would  be  obliged  to  surren¬ 
der.  Finding  their  hope  deceived,  and  perceiving  too 
late  their  carelessness  in  allowing  Lady  Bankes  time 
and  opportunity  to  strengthen  herself,  they  went  away 
for  a  season,  after  burning  four  houses  in  the  town. 

On  a  misty  morning  towards  the  end  of  June 
between  five  and  six  hundred  men,  commanded  by 
Sir  Walter  Erie  and  Captain  Sydenham,  came  into 
Corfe,  with  “  a  demi-cannon,  a  culverin,  and  two 
sacres,”  according  to  the  report  of  the  Mercurius 
Rusticus.  The  Mercurius  Aulicus  explains  that 
two  of  the  pieces  were  thirty-six  pounders — in 
spite  of  which  the  castle  still  held  out.  In  the 
accounts  of  the  county  treasurer  for  1643  is  to  be 
found  a  charge  paid  on  June  14th  “for  loading 
and  unloading  great  guns  brought  from  Portsmouth 
to  Corfe  Castle.”  The  church,  which  stands  near 


I  IO 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


the  gateway,  was  a  most  convenient  station  for  the 
besiegers,  who  cut  up  the  surplices  into  shirts, 
made  powder-horns  out  of  the  organ-pipes,  and 
cast  the  church  lead  into  bullets. 

Better  men  than  the  Puritans  have  made  free 
with  church  gutters  ;  but  if  the  Mercurius  Rusticus 
is  to  be  trusted,  their  other  proceedings  were  in¬ 
defensible.  They  agreed  to  give  no  quarter,  and 
repeatedly  tried  to  corrupt  the  garrison  with  bribes 
and  offers  of  a  share  in  their  plunder,  if  the  castle 
were  betrayed  into  their  hands. 

Bribes  and  threats  being  alike  wasted,  and  the 
“  heavy  guns  ”  taking  little  effect  on  the  castle 
walls,  Erie  now  tried  a  device  which  seems  strangely 
antique  even  for  those  days.  He  constructed  two 
“  engines  ”  of  boards  lined  with  wool,  and  set  upon 
wheels,  under  cover  of  which  his  men  might  come 
within  shot  of  the  walls.  In  the  treasurer’s  accounts 
are  various  items  for  materials  used  in  making 
the  “  Boar  ”  and  the  “  Sow  ” — names  which  carry  the 
mind  back  to  the  days  of  Black  Agnes  of  Dunbar. 
Erie  found  his  engines  as  little  successful  as  Montagu 
did  in  like  case.  The  “Sow”  covered  the  bodies 
of  eleven  men,  but  left  bare  their  legs,  at  which 
the  marksmen  in  the  castle  took  such  good  aim 
“  that  nine  ran  away  as  well  as  their  broken  and 
shattered  legs  would  give  them  leave,  and  of  the 
two  which  knew  neither  how  to  run  away  nor  well 
to  stay  for  fear,  one  was  slain.”  The  “  Boar  ”  was 
so  discouraged  by  the  fate  of  the  “  Sow  ”  that  it 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 


1 1 1 


made  no  attempt  to  advance  ;  and  the  sole  result 
of  the  labour  and  ingenuity  expended  on  the 
machines  was  to  supply  the  Royalists  with  a  stock 
of  jests  quite  as  indelicate  as  those  made  by  the 
Countess  of  Dunbar  herself. 

The  besiegers  began  to  lose  heart ;  the  common 
soldiers  were  weary  of  the  whole  business,  and 
were  not  encouraged  by  their  leaders’  example. 
Dame  Mary  was  here,  there,  and  everywhere,  taking 
an  active  part  in  all  the  defence.  But  “  valiant  Sir 
Walter  never  willingly  exposed  himself  to  any 
hazard  ;  and  to  the  eternal  honour  of  this  knight’s 
valour  be  it  recorded  for  fear  of  musket-shot  (for 
others  they  *  had  none)  he  was  seen  to  creep  on 
all  four  [sic]  on  the  sides  of  the  hill  to  keep  himself 
from  danger.”  The  castle  walls,  twelve  feet  thick, 
kept  out  their  shot.  They  had  expended  much 
time  and  ammunition  and  the  lives  of  several  men, 
yet  they  were  no  nearer  to  the  plunder  of  the  castle 
than  at  the  beginning  of  the  siege.  The  garrison 
were  quick  to  realise  the  despondency  of  their 
foes,  and  took  a  delight  in  annoying  them  by  feats 
of  bravado.  Once  they  made  a  sally  and  fetched 
in  nine  head  of  cattle,  without  loss  or  injury  to 
themselves.  Soon  afterwards  five  boys,  desirous  of 
imitating  their  elders,  carried  off  four  cows.  These 
feats  were  not  undertaken  on  account  of  any 
deficiencies  in  Lady  Bankes’  larder,  but  simply  to 
vex  the  enemy.  “  They  that  stood  on  the  hills 
*  I.e.  the  garrison,  who  had  no  cannon. 


1 12 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


called  to  one  in  a  house  in  the  valley,  crying  ‘  Shoot, 
Anthony.’  But  Anthony  thought  it  good  to  sleep 
in  a  whole  skin,  and  durst  not  look  out,  so  that 
afterwards  it  grew  into  a  proverbial  jeer  from  the 
defendants  to  the  assailants  ‘  Shoot,  Anthony  !  ’  ” 
The  besiegers  grew  sulky  and  despondent.  Even 
when  Sir  Walter  Erie  sent  a  party  to  wreck  the 
house  of  Captain  Lawrence’s  father,  although  they 
left  only  the  bare  walls  standing,  and  forced  Lady 
Lawrence  to  take  refuge  in  the  woods  to  save  her 
life,  it  yielded  little  satisfaction  so  long  as  Captain 
Lawrence  himself  was  safely  ensconced  behind  the 
castle  walls,  picking  off  with  his  musket  any  that 
strayed  too  near. 

At  last  help  came  from  the  Earl  of  Warwick  in 
the  shape  of  a  reinforcement  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  seamen,  with  scaling-ladders,  petards,  and  other 
appliances.  The  rebels  now  determined  upon  taking 
the  castle  by  storm.  A  transient  gleam  of  success 
was  shining  upon  the  king’s  cause.  Sir  William 
Waller  had  been  defeated  at  Roundway  Down, 
Prince  Rupert  had  seized  Bristol,  and  Lord 
Carnarvon  was  marching  into  Dorsetshire  with 
nearly  two  thousand  troops.  If  Erie  were  ever  to 
gain  possession  of  Corfe,  it  must  be  done  speedily. 
How  he  fared  in  his  grand  assault  may  be  told 
in  the  words  of  the  Mercurius  Rusticus  : 

“  They  make  large  offers  to  him  who  shall  first 
scale  the  wall — £ 20  to  the  first,  and  so  by 
descending  sums  a  reward  to  the  twentieth ;  but 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  113 


all  this  could  not  avail  with  these  silly  wretches, 
who  were  brought  thither,  as  themselves  confessed, 
like  sheep  to  the  slaughter,  some  of  them  having 
exchanged  the  manner  of  their  death,  the  halter 
for  the  bullet,  [the  enemy]  having  taken  them  out 
of  gaols ;  one  of  them  being  taken  prisoner  had 
letters  testimonial  in  his  hands  whence  he  came  ; 
the  letters,  I  mean,  when  he  was  burned  for  a  felon 
being  very  visible  to  the  beholders.  But  when  they 
found  that  persuasion  could  not  prevail  with  such 
abject  low-spirited  men,  the  commanders  resolve 
on  another  course,  which  was  to  make  them  drunk, 
knowing  that  drunkenness  makes  some  men  fight 
like  lions  that  being  sober  would  run  away  like 
hares.  To  this  purpose  they  fill  them  with  strong 
waters,  even  to  madness,  and  ready  they  are  now 
for  any  design  ;  and  for  fear  Sir  Walter  should  be 
valiant  against  his  will,  like  Caesar,  he  was  the  only 
man  almost  that  came  sober  to  the  assault ;  an 
imitation  of  the  Turkish  practice  (for  certainly  there 
can  be  nothing  of  Christianity  in  it,  to  send  poor 
souls  to  God’s  judgement-seat  in  the  very  act  of 
two  grievous  sins,  rebellion  and  drunkenness),  who 
to  stupefy  their  soldiers  and  make  them  insensible 
of  their  dangers,  give  them  opium.” 

There  is  proof  that  the  Mercurius  Rusticus  did 
not  slander  Sir  Walter’s  troops  in  an  entry  of  the 
county  treasurer’s  accounts.  Here  we  find : 

“August  2,  1643. — For  a  firkin  of  hot  waters  for 
the  soldiers  when  they  scaled  the  Castle,  £1.  12.  o.” 

8 


1 14  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

Lloyd  asserts  that  the  men  were  actually  dosed 
with  opium  as  well  as  with  spirits,  but  this  is 
scarcely  probable.  No  one  was  likely  to  have  been 
at  the  assault  who  understood  much  of  drugs,  and 
the  effect  of  opium,  administered  by  an  inexpe¬ 
rienced  hand,  would  have  been  stupor  rather  than 
recklessness. 

“  Being  now  armed  with  drink,  they  resolve  to 
storm  the  Castle  on  all  sides,  and  apply  their  scaling- 
ladders,  it  being  ordered  by  the  leaders  (if  I  may, 
without  a  solecism,  call  them  so  that  stood  behind 
and  did  not  so  much  as  follow)  that  when  twenty 
were  entered  they  should  give  a  watchword  to  the 
rest,  and  that  was  ‘Old  Watt’ — a  word  ill-chosen 
by  Sir  Watt  Erie,  and  considering  the  business  in 
hand  little  better  than  ominous,  for  if  I  be  not 
deceived,  the  hunters  that  beat  bushes  for  the 
fearful  timorous  hare  call  him  Old  Watt. 

“  Being  now  pot-valiant  and  possessed  with  a 
borrowed  courage  which  was  to  evaporate  in  sleep, 
they  divide  their  forces  into  two  parties,  whereof 
one  assaults  the  middle  ward,  defended  by  valiant 
Captain  Lawrence  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
soldiers ;  the  other  assault  the  upper  ward  which 
the  Lady  Bankes  (to  her  eternal  honour  be  it  spoken) 
with  her  daughters,  women,  and  five  soldiers  under¬ 
took  to  make  good  against  the  rebels,  and  did  bravely 
perform  what  she  undertook  ;  for  by  heaving  over 
stones  and  hot  embers  they  repelled  the  rebels 
and  kept  them  from  climbing  the  ladders  thence 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  ns 


to  throw  in  that  wildfire  which  every  rebel  had 
already  in  his  hand. 

“  Being  repelled  and  having  in  this  siege  and 
this  assault  lost  and  hurt  an  hundred  men,*  Old  Sir 
Watt,  hearing  that  the  King’s  forces  were  advanced, 
cried  and  ran  away  crying,  leaving  Sydenham  to 
command  in  chief,  to  bring  ofif  the  ordnance,  ammu¬ 
nition,  and  the  remainder  of  the  army  ;  who,  afraid 
to  appear  abroad  kept  sanctuary  in  the  church  till 
night,  meaning  to  sup  and  run  away  by  starlight ; 
but  supper  being  ready  and  set  on  the  table, 
an  alarm  was  given  [doubtless  through  Dame 
Mary’s  contrivance]  that  the  King’s  forces  were 
coming. 

“  This  news  took  away  Sydenham’s  stomach  ;  all 
this  provision  was  but  messes  of  meat  set  before 
the  sepulchres  of  the  dead  ;  he  leaves  his  artillery, 
ammunition,  and  (which  with  these  men  is  some¬ 
thing)  a  good  supper  and  ran  away  to  take  boat 
for  Poole,  leaving  likewise  at  the  shore  about  an 
hundred  horse  to  the  next  takers,  which  next  day 
proved  good  prize  to  the  soldiers  of  the  Castle. 
Thus,  after  six  weeks’  strict  siege,  this  Castle,  the 
desire  of  the  rebels,  the  tears  of  Old  Sir  Watt,  and 
the  key  of  those  parts,  by  the  loyalty  and  brave 
resolution  of  this  honourable  lady,  the  valour  of 
Captain  Lawrence,  and  some  eighty  soldiers  (by 
the  loss  only  of  two  men)  was  delivered  from  the 

*  “  Captain  Lawrence  at  the  last  assault  so  well  received 
them  that  sixty  were  killed.” — Mercurius  Aulicus. 


n6  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

bloody  intentions  of  these  merciless  rebels,  on  the 
4th  of  August,  1643.” 

Sir  John  Bankes,  released  for  a  time  from  his  official 
duties,  now  returned  home  to  wife  and  children. 
He  was  not  sanguine  for  the  future,  but  he  can 
scarcely  have  failed  to  rejoice  in  the  safety  of  house¬ 
hold  and  property,  although  the  church  at  his  gate 
stood  roofless  and  the  cottages  were  ruined.  His 
last  visit  to  his  family  was  not  of  long  duration.  In 
December  Charles  summoned  a  rival  Parliament  to 
meet  at  Oxford,  and  among  those  who  were  assem¬ 
bled  in  the  great  hall  of  Christchurch  in  January,  1644, 
was  Sir  John  Bankes.  Grievous  as  the  parting  was 
between  husband  and  wife,  Lady  Bankes  had  this 
consolation,  that  two  of  his  children  would  care  for 
him  and  send  her  reports  of  his  health  and  actions. 
He  was,  as  before,  to  stay  in  the  house  of  Lady 
Jenkinson,  and  his  eldest  daughter,  “  the  excellent 
Lady  Burlace,”  would  be  in  Oxford  with  her  husband, 
who  was  member  for  Corfe  Castle.  Sir  John  Burlace, 
who  afterwards  “  suffered  several  imprisonments  and 
decimations  from  the  King’s  enemies,”  is  extolled 
by  Lloyd  for  being  “  very  civil  upon  all  occasions 
to  his  friends.” 

The  months  passed  wearily  for  Lady  Bankes  in 
her  stronghold,  as  closely  beset  as  in  the  days  before 
the  first  siege.  Fortune  had  deserted  the  Royalists, 
and  one  by  one  all  the  fruits  of  their  early  successes 
were  lost.  Weymouth,  Dorchester,  and  Wareham 
once  more  yielded  to  the  rebel  forces.  Lady  Bankes 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  117 


was  proclaimed  a  “  malignant  ”  by  the  Parliament 
at  Westminster,  and  Corfe  Castle  was  declared  to 
be  forfeited. 

In  the  last  days  of  December,  1644,  a  crushing 
sorrow  fell  upon  the  brave  lady.  Sir  John  Bankes 
died  suddenly  at  Oxford  in  the  fifty-fifth  year  of 
his  age.  His  two  eldest  daughters  were  with  him  ; 
but  his  illness  was  so  short  that  his  wife  can 
scarcely  have  heard  of  it  until  all  was  over.  He 
was  buried  in  Christchurch  Cathedral,  where  a 
slab  records  in  Latin  his  dignities,  his  virtues,  and 
the  text  which  he  would  fain  have  had  for  his 
sole  epitaph :  “  Non  nobis,  Domine,  non  nobis,  sed 
nomini  tuo  sit  gloria.” 

Lady  Bankes  had  no  time  to  nurse  her  grief. 
She  was  practically  alone  in  a  hostile  neighbourhood, 
and  the  garrison  which  had  been  put  into  the  castle 
after  the  siege  consisted  of  soldiers  brought  from  a 
distance,  commanded  by  officers  who  were  unknown 
to  her.  Far  happier  would  it  have  been  for  her,  as 
the  event  proved,  had  she  been  left  with  only  the 
help  of  Captain  Bond,  her  tenants,  and  her  serving- 
men  and  maids. 

After  the  battle  of  Naseby  had  given  a  death¬ 
blow  to  the  hopes  of  the  Royalists,  the  blockade 
around  Corfe  Castle  tightened.  The  Governor  of 
Poole,  Colonel  Bingham,  had  orders  to  reduce  the 
castle  by  force.  In  the  winter  of  1645 — 1646  its  plight 
seemed  desperate  ;  and  a  young  Royalist,  Colonel 
Cromwell,  hearing  that  helpless  ladies  were  within 


n8  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

its  walls,  conceived  and  executed  a  scheme  worthy 
of  a  knight-errant  in  a  romance  of  chivalry.  Gather¬ 
ing  about  him  a  troop  of  one  hundred  and  twenty 
men,  he  decked  them  with  the  orange-tawny  scarves 
worn  by  the  rebels,  and  rode  at  utmost  speed  from 
Oxford  into  Dorsetshire.  With  the  coolest  effrontery 
he  rode  through  the  streets  of  Wareham,  while  the 
sentinels,  suspecting  nothing,  saluted  him,  and  drew 
rein  before  the  house  of  the  governor,  Captain 
Butler.  For  some  reason  or  other  Butler  divined 
that  all  was  not  as  it  should  have  been,  in  spite 
of  the  orange-tawny  scarves,  and  opened  fire  from 
his  house  upon  the  troop.  In  nowise  dismayed,  but 
feeling  that  there  was  no  time  to  be  lost,  Cromwell 
fired  a  house  close  to  the  governor’s  lodgings  which 
adjoined  the  powder-magazine.  The  governor,  having 
no  wish  to  be  blown  into  the  air,  yielded  himself 
a  prisoner,  and  was  mounted  behind  a  trooper. 
Two  committee  men  on  whom  the  Royalists  had 
managed  to  seize  were  also  caught  to  the  saddle, 
and  the  whole  band  clattered  out  of  Wareham  be¬ 
fore  the  townspeople  could  regain  their  senses,  and 
swept  on  to  the  castle.  Their  coolness  and  audacity 
brought  them  safely  through  a  body  of  the  enemy 
drawn  up  between  them  and  the  gate,  and  Colonel 
Cromwell  had  the  pleasure  of  presenting  his 
captives  as  an  offering  to  Lady  Bankes. 

Fain  would  he  have  carried  away  the  lady  and 
her  daughters  to  a  place  of  safety  ;  but  so  long  as 
it  was  possible  to  remain  she  would  not  leave  the 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  119 

fortress  that  her  husband  had  trusted  her  to  keep. 
So  Colonel  Cromwell  was  forced  to  ride  away  again 
with  his  task  half  done,  and  on  his  return  was 
taken  prisoner  by  the  enemy,  while  his  little  band 
was  scattered  far  and  wide.  Some  of  its  members 
returned  to  the  castle,  where  their  prisoners,  in  an 
evil  hour  for  the  garrison,  had  been  left  in  Lady 
Bankes’  keeping. 

Robert  Lawrence,  who  had  been  the  lady’s  chief 
stay  in  the  first  siege,  was  now  growing  weary  of 
a  hopeless  resistance.  He  had  suffered  enough  for  a 
lost  cause  ;  his  loyalty  had  already  been  rewarded 
by  the  destruction  of  his  father’s  home.  It  was 
far  better  to  make  terms  while  it  was  still  in  their 
power  to  do  so,  than  to  prolong  the  struggle  for  a 
few  weeks,  only  to  yield  unconditionally  to  over¬ 
whelming  force.  Lady  Bankes  would  listen  to 
none  of  these  considerations,  and  Lawrence  turned 
to  one  who  was  as  weary  of  the  siege  as  himself 
and  was  liberal  with  promises  of  reward.  The 
household  awoke,  one  winter’s  morn,  to  find  that 
Captain  Butler  had  made  his  escape  and  that 
Lawrence  had  gone  with  him. 

If  an  old  friend  who  had  been  with  her  in  jeopardy 
of  his  life  could  thus  desert  Lady  Bankes,  it  was 
not  strange  that  another  member  of  her  garrison 
should  betray  her.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Pitman,  one 
of  the  officers  who  had  been  sent  to  her  aid,  was 
tired  not  only  of  the  siege,  but  of  the  king’s  service, 
and  wished  to  make  friends  with  the  victorious 


120 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


party.  He  found  means  to  let  the  enemy  know 
that  if  he  were  assured  of  protection  for  himself  he 
would  put  the  castle  into  their  hands.  The  offer 
was  accepted,  and  Pitman  cast  about  him  for  a 
stratagem  by  which  he  might  accomplish  his  treason 
with  as  little  risk  as  possible.  Fate  played  into  his 
hands.  His  brother  had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the 
besiegers,  and  a  Parliamentarian  officer  was  confined 
in  the  castle.  He  proposed  to  Colonel  Anketil,  the 
governor  of  the  castle,  that  he  should  obtain  a 
pass  from  the  enemy  on  the  pretext  of  arranging 
an  exchange  of  prisoners,  and  should  take  that 
opportunity  of  bringing  a  hundred  men  from 
Somersetshire  to  strengthen  the  garrison. 

Colonel  Anketil  fell  into  the  snare,  and  readily 
assented.  Having  obtained  his  pass,  Pitman  hurried 
away  to  Colonel  Bingham,  who  commanded  the 
besieging  force,  and  proposed  to  introduce  a  hundred 
of  them  into  the  castle  instead  of  the  promised 
reinforcements.  Bingham,  who  was  an  honourable 
gentleman,  must  have  loathed  the  traitor,  but  he 
could  not  refuse  to  profit  by  his  treason. 

Tradition  still  shows  a  little  sallyport  in  the  wall 
near  the  chapel  to  which  Pitman  led  his  men  on  a 
P'ebruary  night,  and  found  Anketil  ready  to  receive 
them.  At  the  last  moment  the  governor’s  mind 
misgave  him,  and  after  admitting  fifty  men  he 
ordered  the  port  to  be  shut,  saying  that  he  now 
had  as  many  as  he  wanted.  While  Pitman  angrily 
remonstrated  with  him  for  this  treatment  of  allies 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 


121 


who  had  come  so  far  and  at  so  great  a  risk,  the  men 
quietly  possessed  themselves  of  the  King’s  Tower 
and  the  upper  wards.  Having  been  drawn  from 
Weymouth  and  Lulworth,  some  of  them  knew  the 
castle,  and  they  shut  the  garrison  into  the  lower 
ward,  which  had  always  been  considered  the  post 
of  danger.  Only  six  men  had  been  left  to  guard 
the  upper  ward,  and  these  were  easily  overpowered. 
When  dawn  broke  and  the  garrison  discovered 
their  position,  they  opened  fire,  but  it  was  in  vain  ; 
between  the  foe  above  and  the  foe  without  they 
were  helpless.  Honour  was  safe,  and  there  was  no 
disgrace  in  sparing  useless  bloodshed. 

So  Brave  Dame  Mary  yielded  to  treachery  that 
which  force  had  not  been  able  to  wring  from  her. 
A  tragedy  was  but  narrowly  averted.  Some  of  the 
besiegers  were  so  eager  for  their  promised  share  in 
the  plunder  of  the  castle  that  they  set  a  ladder 
against  the  wall,  without  waiting  for  the  gates  to 
be  opened.  The  garrison,  misunderstanding  their 
action,  fired  upon  them,  and  but  for  Colonel 
Bingham’s  authority  a  general  massacre  would  have 
followed.  As  it  was,  only  two  of  the  garrison  and 
one  of  the  enemy  lost  their  lives. 

The  details  of  this  last  siege  and  of  the  surrender 
that  have  come  down  to  us  are  so  meagre  that  it  is 
impossible  to  decide  when  Lady  Bankes’  resistance 
was  ended.  It  is  most  probable  that  Pitman  intro¬ 
duced  his  contingent  on  the  night  of  February  26th, 
1646,  and  that  the  castle  was  surrendered  on  the 


122 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


morning  of  the  27th.  It  was  well  stocked  with 
provisions  and  supplies,  and  no  less  than  seventeen 
barrels  of  powder  were  found  in  it. 

After  it  had  been  stripped  bare  of  its  furniture, 
hangings,  and  plenishings,  for  many  months  the 
county  sequestrators  laboured  to  destroy  it.  Lady 
Bankes’  descendant,  who  wrote  The  Story  of  Corfe 
Castle ,  says :  “  There  are  not  a  few  of  the  fair 
mansions  in  Dorsetshire  which  have  been  constructed 
in  a  large  measure  with  the  stone  and  timber  carried 
away  from  this  castle.”  Sir  Walter  Erie  seized  this 
occasion  of  avenging  his  defeat,  and  carried  away 
five  or  six  cartloads  of  building-materials  to  restore 
his  own  house,  which  had  suffered  in  the  late 
disturbances. 

All  the  Bankes  property  was  sequestrated.  Ralph 
Bankes,  the  heir  to  Corfe,  had  to  pay  .£1,974,  Lady 
Bankes  and  her  younger  children  ,£1,400,  as  a 
penalty  for  their  offences  against  the  State.  When 
Charles  II.  came  to  his  father’s  throne,  he  knighted 
Ralph,  granting  him  an  augmentation  to  his  coat- 
of-arms,  and  graciously  permitted  him  to  take 
possession  of  his  estates  and  property — if  he  could. 
The  estates,  not  having  been  specifically  granted 
to  any  friend  of  the  Parliament,  were  obtainable  ; 
but  all  of  the  property  taken  from  the  castle  that 
was  recovered  by  Ralph  seems  to  have  been  a 
feather  bed  (from  which  the  feathers  had  been 
abstracted),  a  red  velvet  chair,  and  a  set  of  fine 
old  damask  table-linen.  Sir  Walter  Erie,  when 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  123 


required  to  disgorge  his  share  of  the  plunder, 
replied  that  it  had  long  been  in  his  mind  to  speak 
to  Sir  Ralph  on  the  subject,  and  that  he  “  had 
something  in  readiness  to  present  you  withal  upon 
occasion,  and  that  merely  in  regard  that  having 
kept  my  hands  free  from  things  of  that  nature  in 
general,  it  went  against  the  hair  with  me  to  silence 
that  particular  as  to  yourself.”  But  so  far  from 
offering  that  “something”  now  that  the  opportunity 
occurred,  he  protested,  first,  that  he  was  in  no 
way  “  compellable  to  make  satisfaction  ”  ;  secondly, 
that  the  timber  and  stone  had  been  taken  by  his 
servants  during  his  absence  and  without  his  know¬ 
ledge  ;  and  thirdly,  that  what  he  had  was  “  in 
point  of  value  no  such  great  matter.”  On  their 
next  meeting  he  would  be  happy  to  discuss  the 
question,  and  “  nothing  that  is  reasonable,  whether 
in  law  or  equity  (for  to  me  all  is  one),”  should  be 
denied  to  Ralph.  And  this  was  all  the  satisfaction 
that  was  to  be  obtained  of  “  Old  Sir  Watt.” 

Only  the  fortune  of  a  Chicago  pork-butcher 
or  a  South  African  adventurer  could  have  rebuilt 
Corfe  Castle,  and  such  characters  were  unknown 
at  the  time  of  the  Restoration — happily  for  that 
much-abused  period.  The  ruins  stand  in  lonely 
grandeur,  the  ivy  clinging  about  the  towers  rent 
asunder  by  the  gunpowder,  for  which  so  heavy  a 
charge  was  made  in  the  county  rates.  Sir  Ralph 
built  himself  a  family  mansion  at  Kingston  Lacy 
from  a  design  by  Inigo  Jones,  and  doubtless  found 


124 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


it  a  more  convenient  dwelling-place  than  the  old 
feudal  castle. 

Lady  Bankes  did  not  live  to  see  her  son’s  new 
home.  After  leaving  Corfe,  she  seems  to  have 
returned  to  her  birthplace,  and  her  monument  is 
in  the  chancel  of  Ruislip  Church,  with  those  of 
other  Hawtreys.  Her  last  illness  was  so  sudden 
that  her  son  Sir  Ralph  was  married  to  a  Dorsetshire 
heiress  on  the  very  day  of  her  death. 

Her  epitaph,  probably  written  by  Sir  Ralph 
himself,  is  worthy  of  its  subject : 

“To  the  memory  of  the  Lady  Mary  Bankes,  only 
daughter  of  Ralph  Hawtrey  of  Rislipp  [sic]  in  the 
county  of  Middlesex,  Esquire,  the  wife  and  widow 
of  the  Honourable  Sir  John  Bankes,  Knight,  late 
Lord  Chief  Justice  of  His  late  Majesty’s  Court  of 
Common  Pleas,  and  of  the  Privy  Council  to  His 
late  Majesty  Charles  the  First  of  Blessed  Memory  ; 
Who,  having  had  the  honour  to  have  borne  with 
a  constancy  and  courage  above  her  sex  a  noble 
proportion  of  the  late  calamities,  and  the  happiness 
to  have  outlived  them  so  far  as  to  have  seen  the 
restitution  of  the  Government,  with  great  peace  of 
mind  laid  down  her  most  desired  life,  the  iith 
day  of  April,  1661.” 

#  * 

•  * 

Lastly,  as  a  complete  contrast  to  any  of  the  gentle 
but  high-spirited  dames  whose  stories  have  been  told 
here,  let  us  turn  to  a  forgotten  book — Personal 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  125 


Sketches  of  His  Own  Times ,  by  Sir  JonaJi  Barrington. 
His  great-aunt,  Elizabeth  Fitzgerald,  was  besieged 
by  the  Jacobites  in  her  Castle  of  Moret,  near 
Cullenagh,  in  1690,  and  the  tale  of  her  defence  was 
handed  down  by  oral  tradition  from  generation  to 
generation,  until  it  reached  the  ears  of  Jonah 
Barrington,  then  a  child  on  his  grandfather’s  estate. 
He  solemnly  declares  that  every  incident  is  “  strictly 
matter  of  fact  ”  ;  and  although  it  seems  almost  too 
good  to  be  true,  it  is  certainly  too  good  to  be 
forgotten. 

Squire  Stephen  Fitzgerald,  the  husband  of  this 
heroic  lady,  was  of  a  peaceful,  not  to  say  supine, 
disposition,  and  left  everything  in  her  hands.  In 
Castle  Moret,  among  her  tenants  and  retainers,  she 
ruled  a  queen,  with  as  much  power  as  any  petty 
chieftain  in  the  days  “  when  Malachy  wore  the 
collar  of  gold.”  Some  years  later,  when  Ireland  was 
supposed  to  be  comparatively  civilised,  a  hasty  word 
from  Sir  Jonah  Barrington’s  grandmother,  misunder¬ 
stood  by  her  servants,  led  to  the  cropping  of  a 
neighbour’s  ears  ;  and  when  Elizabeth  Fitzgerald 
managed  her  husband  and  his  estates,  no  law  save 
her  word  was  known  to  their  numerous  dependants. 

James  II.’s  desperate  attempt  to  regain  in  Ireland 
what  he  had  lost  in  England  set  that  unhappy 
country  in  a  blaze  from  one  end  to  the  other.  Any 
one  who  had  a  grudge  to  avenge,  a  feud  to  prosecute, 
who  wished  to  regain  his  own  property  or  to  seize 
upon  that  of  a  neighbour,  availed  himself  of  this 


126  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

opportunity  to  take  up  arms.  In  the  public  dis¬ 
tractions  it  would  be  easy  to  pay  off  old  scores  ;  and 
the  greatest  in  the  land  were  too  busy  with  their 
own  concerns  to  interfere  if  private  individuals  were 
quietly  settling  a  few  differences  among  themselves. 

For  many  generations  there  had  been  a  deadly 
quarrel  between  the  Fitzgeralds  of  Castle  Moret 
and  their  neighbours,  the  O’Cahills.  It  dated  from 
the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  when  the  head  of  the 
O’Cahills  had  been  dispossessed  of  Castle  Moret, 
which  was  bestowed  on  a  Fitzgerald.  Now  that 
the  king  was  expected  to  enjoy  his  own  again,  the 
O’Cahills  mounted  the  white  cockade,  and  proceeded 
to  show  their  loyalty  by  an  attack  upon  Castle 
Moret,  which  was  supposed  to  be  under  the  protec¬ 
tion  of  the  orange  flag.  Needless  to  say,  neither 
Fitzgeralds  nor  O’Cahills  troubled  themselves  as 
to  which  king  was  their  nominal  lord  :  a  revolution 
was  merely  regarded  as  an  event  which  gave 
additional  facilities  for  faction-fights. 

Castle  Moret,  not  so  strongly  defended  by  nature 
as  Corfe  Castle,  resembled  it  in  possessing  no  cannon 
at  the  time  of  its  need.  The  forty  stout  warders 
who  formed  the  garrison  used  large  stones  to  keep 
off  their  enemies’  approach.  A  hole  over  the 
entrance  to  the  castle  allowed  one  of  the  defenders, 
unseen  and  protected  from  all  risks,  to  drop  down 
anything  that  he  pleased  upon  the  heads  of  those 
below.  A  spring  known  as  St.  Bridget’s  Well 
supplied  the  castle  with  water,  and  there  was  ample 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  127 


store  of  provision  in  the  vaults.  The  O’Cahills 
possessed  few  guns,  and  “  there  was  not  a  single  piece 
of  ordnance  in  the  country,  except  those  few  which 
were  mounted  in  the  Fort  of  Dunnally,  or  travelled 
with  the  King’s  army,  and  to  speak  truth,  fire-arms 
then  would  have  been  of  little  use,  since  there  was 
not  sufficient  gunpowder  among  the  people  to  hold 
an  hour’s  hard  fighting.” 

With  all  this  in  her  favour,  Elizabeth  Fitzgerald 
was  ready  to  defy  one  and  all,  and  disposed  herself 
to  wait  events  with  a  cheerfulness  that  was  not 
shared  by  her  husband,  who  had  a  presentiment 
that  his  end  was  drawing  near. 

The  O’Cahills,  having  collected  their  forces,  pre¬ 
pared  to  attack  Castle  Moret,  and  great  was  their 
surprise  and  delight  when,  on  approaching  the 
walls  after  nightfall,  they  were  allowed  to  draw 
near  to  the  main  entrance  unchallenged.  Believing 
the  garrison  to  be  asleep  or  careless,  they  heaped 
combustibles  about  the  gate,  and,  exulting  in  the 
unpleasant  wakening  in  store  for  the  Fitzgeralds, 
they  were  about  to  set  fire  to  it.  But,  hidden 
from  them  by  the  darkness  of  the  night,  the  warders 
were  on  the  alert  at  their  posts,  well  supplied  with 
the  heavy  stones  that  were  their  only  ammunition  ; 
others  were  in  the  hole  over  the  entrance,  with 
gallons  of  boiling  water.  Just  as  the  O’Cahills 
were  clearly  visible  by  the  flare  of  their  own  lights, 
a  deluge  poured  down  upon  their  heads,  putting 
out  the  fire  and  scalding  them  cruelly.  In  vain 


128 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


did  those  who  were  not  disabled  by  their  injuries 
attempt  to  run  away.  A  hail  of  stones  fell  on 
them  in  all  directions  from  battlement  and  parapet, 
hurled  by  the  warders,  who  were  commanded  by 
Elizabeth  Fitzgerald  herself,  and  assisted  by  her 
maids.  Stephen  Fitzgerald,  the  nominal  lord  of 
the  castle,  had  taken  the  precaution  of  hiding 
behind  a  parapet,  safe  from  friends  and  foes. 

“The  old  traditionists  of  the  country  often  told 
me,”  says  Sir  Jonah,  “  that  at  daybreak  there  were 
lying  above  a  hundred  of  the  assailants  under  the 
castle  walls — some  scalded,  some  battered  to  pieces, 
and  many  lamed  so  as  to  have  no  power  of  moving  ; 
but  my  good  aunt  kindly  ordered  them  all  to  be 
put  out  of  their  misery,  as  fast  as  ropes  and  a  long 
gallows,  erected  for  their  sakes,  could  perform  that 
piece  of  humanity.” 

The  rest  of  the  O’Cahills  seemed  to  have  made 
good  their  retreat,  for  no  sign  of  them  was  to  be 
seen  when  the  well-intentioned  Stephen  Fitzgerald 
came  out  of  his  hiding-place  in  the  early  morning. 
All  the  household  was  too  busy  rejoicing  over  the 
victory  to  pay  any  attention  to  the  movements  of 
so  insignificant  a  person  as  himself,  and  he  stole 
down  into  his  garden  full  of  thankfulness  that  there 
was  pow  some  chance  of  his  enjoying  the  peace 
and  tranquillity  of  which  his  wife  and  the  O’Cahills 
between  them  seemed  determined  to  rob  him. 

Unluckily  for  the  good  man,  the  O’Cahills  had 
learned  a  lesson  from  their  foes,  and,  having  feigned 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES. 


129 


a  retreat,  were  lying  in  wait  for  their  opportunity. 
Seeing  the  squire  roaming  unattended,  they  swooped 
down  upon  him  and  carried  him  off  before  any  of 
his  own  people  could  attempt  a  rescue. 

Elizabeth  naturally  supposed  herself  to  be  a 
widow,  and  was  considerably  startled  when  the 
O’Cahills  again  appeared  in  force  beneath  the  castle 
walls  on  the  following  day,  and,  waving  a  flag  of 
truce,  demanded  a  few  words  with  her.  Stephen 
Fitzgerald,  said  their  speaker,  was  here,  a  prisoner  in 
their  hands.  If  his  wife  chose  to  surrender  her  castle 
immediately,  she  should  receive  him  in  exchange, 
safe  and  unhurt ;  if  not,  he  should  then  and  there 
be  hanged  before  her  eyes. 

It  was  a  device  which  has  been  dear  to  all 
besiegers  from  the  days  when  sieges  first  began, 
and  on  some  occasions  it  has  proved  very  useful. 
The  ancestress  of  a  family  well  known  to  the  present 
writer  was  driven  to  purchase  her  husband’s  life 
by  yielding  to  rebels  the  fort  which  he  had  been 
trusted  to  keep.  But  Elizabeth  Fitzgerald  was  a 
more  devoted  patriot,  or  a  less  devoted  wife,  and 
her  answer,  as  repeated  to  Sir  Jonah  Barrington 
by  the  descendants  of  those  who  stood  at  her  side, 
was  worthy  of  a  Spartan  matron  : 

“  Flag  of  truce !  mark  the  words  of  Elizabeth 
Fitzgerald  of  Moret  Castle  ;  they  may  serve  for 
your  own  wife  upon  some  future  occasion.  Flag  of 
truce !  I  won’t  render  my  keep,  and  I’ll  tell  you 
why — Elizabeth  Fitzgerald  may  get  another  husband, 

9 


13°  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

but  Elizabeth  Fitzgerald  may  never  get  another 
castle  ;  so  I’ll  keep  what  I  have,  and  if  you  can’t 
get  off  faster  than  your  legs  can  readily  carry  you, 
my  warders  will  try  which  is  hardest,  your  skull 
or  a  stone  bullet.” 

If  she  had  hoped  to  defeat  the  O’Cahills  by  a 
show  of  boldness,  she  was  mistaken.  After  the 
failure  of  the  night  attack  their  tempers  were  none 
of  the  best,  and  although  they  had  played  their 
trump  card  to  no  purpose,  revenge  was  not  to  be 
despised.  Poor  Stephen  Fitzgerald,  whose  worst 
offence  seems  to  have  been  that  he  had  married  a 
termagant,  was  hanged  within  sight  of  his  household, 
and  after  gloating  over  his  dying  agonies,  the 
O’Cahills  suddenly  retired,  leaving  the  corpse  to  be 
buried  by  the  widow.  “  This  magnanimous  lady, 
after  Squire  Stephen  had  been  duly  cut  down, 
waked,  and,  deposited  in  a  neighbouring  garden, 
conceived  that  she  might  enjoy  her  castle  with 
tranquillity.” 

The  battle  of  the  Boyne,  which  gave  the  ascendant 
to  the  Orange  faction,  saved  Sir  Jonah’s  great¬ 
grandfather,  Colonel  John  Barrington,  from  being 
strung  up  to  his  own  castle-gate,  and  secured 
Elizabeth  Fitzgerald  from  being  further  molested  on 
the  score  of  her  zeal  for  the  Protestant  succession. 
Her  unprotected  state,  however,  gave  great  anxiety 
to  her  male  friends,  who  drew  lots  among  themselves 
to  decide  who  should  console  her  for  the  loss  of 
Squire  Stephen.  The  prospect  of  marrying  a  lady 


SOME  BELEAGUERED  LADIES.  13 1 

who  held  a  husband  in  such  cheap  estimation  does 
not  seem  alluring,  but  Elizabeth  Fitzgerald  was  as 
much  beset  with  suitors  as  Penelope.  There  is  no 
excuse  for  giving  the  rest  of  her  adventures  in  these 
pages,  and  perhaps  what  has  already  been  quoted 
is  too  broad  farce  to  be  linked  with  the  dramas 
of  Wardour  and  Corfe  ;  yet  the  first  siege  of  Castle 
Moret  is  so  curious  an  illustration  of  some  of  the 
forms  taken  by  the  struggle  between  the  Jacobites 
and  Orangemen  of  Ireland  that  its  insertion  here 
may  be  forgiven.  For  the  sake  of  those  who  are 
interested  in  this  very  unconventional  heroine,  it 
may  be  added  that  she  succeeded  in  preserving 
her  liberty  and  her  castle,  surviving  till  late  in  the 
reign  of  George  I. 


IV. 

A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION. 

The  Marquis  and  Marchioness  of  Worcester 
( d .  1699,  d.  1715). 

The  Lady  Grace  Manners  (Lady  Chaworth). 
The  Lady  Mary  Bertie. 

The  Hon.  Bridget  Noel. 


133 


IV. 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION. 
HE  Courts  of  Charles  II.  and  James  II.  have 


-A.  so  often  been  described  by  contemporaries 
that  we  are  all  more  or  less  familiar  with  the  most 
prominent  figures  that  attended  them.  Pepys, 
Grammont,  Barillon,  even  good  Mr.  Evelyn,  saw 
much  of  the  seamy  side,  and  were  chiefly  concerned 
with  noting  down  the  scandals  of  the  day.  It  is 
not  until  we  come  to  examine  other  letters  of  the 
time  that  have  long  been  put  aside  and  forgotten 
that  we  begin  to  realise  that  there  were  others 
besides  Evelyn’s  estimable  Mrs.  Godolphin  who  could 
keep  themselves  free  from  the  pollutions  of  the  Court, 
although  they  might  sometimes  be  obliged  to  visit 
it.  It  was  not  strange  that  the  children  of  Robert 
and  Brilliana  Harley  should  retain  their  integrity 
and  leave  an  honoured  reputation  to  their  descen¬ 
dants  ;  they  seem  never  to  have  mixed  in  the  gay 
world,  and  to  have  visited  London  only  on  business. 
But  in  the  very  midst  of  the  Court  there  were  some 
who  could  enter  into  all  lawful  amusements,  and 
enjoy  music,  painting,  dancing,  fine  clothes,  and 


136 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


other  pleasures  of  this  world  to  their  heart’s  content, 
without  being  led  away  by  the  evil  example  of  the 
highest  in  the  land. 

One  of  the  most  picturesque  figures  among  those 
who  suffered  in  the  cause  of  Charles  I.  is  that  of 
Edward,  second  Marquis  of  Worcester,  known  during 
the  lifetime  of  his  father  as  Lord  Herbert,  or  Lord 
Glamorgan,  whose  scientific  discoveries  won  for  him 
the  traditional  name  of  “  The  Wizard  Earl.”  Even 
in  ruins  Raglan  Castle  is  magnificent  to  this  day, 
and  it  is  pitiful  to  read  the  account  of  its  past  glories 
written  by  an  old  servant  who  had  waited  on  the 
first  marquis.  The  old  man’s  memory  dwells  fondly 
upon  its  bridges,  its  towers,  its  fair  walks,  one  “  set 
forth  with  several  figures  of  the  Roman  Emperors 
in  arches  of  divers  varieties  of  shell-works,”  its 
“  stately  Hall,  having  a  rare  geometrical  roof  built 
of  Irish  oak,”  its  large  and  fair  windows  “  beaten 
down  by  the  enemies’  great  guns,”  its  “  pleasant 
marble  fountain  called  the  White  Horse,  continually 
running  with  a  clear  water,”  its  bowling-green, 
“much  liked  by  His  late  Majesty  for  its  situation,” 
its  gardens,  orchards,  and  fishponds,  its  park  “  thick 
planted  with  oaks  and  several  large  beeches,  and 
richly  stocked  with  deer.” 

Then  follows  a  description  of  the  manner  in  which 
dinner  was  served  in  the  household,  “  committed  to 
writing,  for  that  few  or  none  remember  this  at  this 
day.”  “  At  eleven  o’clock  the  Castle  gates  were  shut, 
and  the  tables  laid,  two  in  the  dining-room,  three  in 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  137 


the  Hall,  one  in  Mrs.  Watson’s  apartments  where 
the  Chaplain  sat,  two  in  the  housekeeper’s  room 
for  the  Ladies’  women.  The  Earl  [Marquis]  came 
into  the  dining-room  attended  by  his  gentlemen. 
As  soon  as  he  was  seated,  the  Steward  of  the  House 
retired,  the  Comptroller  attended  with  his  staff,  the 
server,  the  daily  waiters,  with  many  gentlemen’s 
sons  from  ^200  to  £yoo  a  year,  bred  in  the  Castle, 
my  Lady’s  Gentleman  Usher,  my  Lord’s  gentlemen 
of  the  table.  At  the  first  table  sat  the  Noble  Family 
and  such  of  the  Nobility  as  came  there,  served  by 
gentlemen,”  and  at  the  second  table  in  the  dining¬ 
room  “  Knights  and  honourable  gentlemen  ”  ;  also 
“  my  Lady’s  gentlewomen  and  other  gentlewomen 
residing  in  the  house,”  “  and  such  gentlewomen 
strangers  as  happened  to  come,”  served  by  footmen. 
At  the  first  table  in  the  hall,  presided  over  by  the 
steward,  sat  comptroller,  secretary,  master  of  the 
horse,  master  of  the  fishponds,  my  Lord  Herbert’s 
preceptor,  and  such  gentlemen  as  came  under  the 
degree  of  a  knight,  attended  by  footmen  and  plenti¬ 
fully  served  with  wine.  At  the  second  table,  which 
was  “served  from  my  Lord’s  table,  and  with  other 
hot  meat,”  was  the  gentleman  server  “  with  the 
Gentlemen  Waiters  and  Pages  to  the  number  of 
twenty-four  or  more.”  At  the  third  table  was  the 
clerk  of  the  kitchen,  with  the  yeomen  officers  of 
the  house.  Mrs.  Watson  entertained  in  her  room 
“  gentlewomen  strangers  that  did  not  appear  below 
stairs,  and  other  gentlewomen  that  happened  to  be 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


138 

there.”  Besides  these,  there  were  doctors,  butchers, 
keepers,  brewers,  bakers,  “  footmen,  grooms,  and  other 
menial  servants  to  the  number  of  150”;  bailiffs, 
ploughmen,  tailor,  saddler,  plumber,  cooks,  rough- 
rider,  farrier,  and  falconer.  There  is  a  touch  that 
recalls  the  scene  in  Branksome  Tower,  when  we 
are  told  that  four  of  the  grooms  of  the  stable 
“  had  in  charge  no  more  than  the  great  stables, 
for  they  watched  the  twelve  war-horses  there  day 
and  night.”  One  who  lived  in  this  vast  household, 
half-Romanist,  half-Protestant,  bears  witness  that  in 
the  space  of  three  years  he  saw  not  a  man  drunk, 
heard  not  an  oath  sworn  nor  a  cross  word  given, 
so  perfect  was  the  order  that  Lord  Worcester 
maintained,  and  so  great  was  the  love  for  him  of 
all  his  people. 

All  this  half-feudal,  half-patriarchal  state  and 
splendour  came  to  an  end  in  August,  1646,  when 
the  castle,  having  been  garrisoned  by  the  marquis 
at  his  own  expense  from  the  beginning  of  the  Civil 
War,  was  obliged  to  surrender  to  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax. 
“  Afterwards  the  woods  in  the  three  parks  were 
destroyed,  the  lead  and  timber  were  carried  to 
Monmouth,  thence  by  water  to  rebuild  Bristol  Bridge 
after  the  last  fire.  The  Great  Tower,  after  tedious 
battering  the  top  thereof  with  pickaxes,  was  under¬ 
mined,  the  weight  of  it  propped  with  the  timber  whilst 
the  two  sides  of  the  six  were  cut  through ;  the 
timber  being  burned,  it  fell  down  in  a  lump.  After 
the  surrender  the  country  people  were  summoned 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  139 


into  a  rendezvous  with  pickaxes,  spades,  and  shovels, 
to  draw  the  moat  in  hope  of  wealth ;  their  hope 
failing,  they  were  set  to  cut  the  stanks  of  the  great 
fish-ponds,  where  they  had  store  of  very  great 
carps,  and  other  large  fish.”  The  wanton  acts  of 
destruction  committed  by  the  Puritans  at  this  time 
were  a  disgrace  not  only  to  the  lofty  doctrines 
that  they  professed,  but  to  ordinary  decency  and 
common  sense. 

Raglan  could  never  be  rebuilt  by  one  who,  accord¬ 
ing  to  his  own  estimate,  had  spent  with  his  father 
,£918,000  in  the  king’s  service,  and  the  Restoration 
brought  little  but  disappointment  to  Lord  Worcester. 
Even  the  Dukedom  of  Somerset,  promised  to  his 
father  by  Charles  I.,  was  not  granted  to  him. 
Charles  II.  at  no  time  of  his  life  had  any  money 
to  spare,  and  he  could  not  afford  to  be  too  lavish 
of  empty  dignities  to  a  faithful  subject  who  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  born  a  Roman  Catholic.  A 
memorandum  in  Lord  Worcester’s  writing,  addressed 
to  the  king  “  to  ease  Your  Majesty  of  a  trouble 
incident  to  a  prolixity  of  speech  and  a  natural 
defect  of  utterance,  which  I  accuse  myself  of,”  sets 
forth  at  great  length  the  services  of  himself  and  his 
father  to  the  rightful  cause,  and  an  undated  letter 
expresses  a  hope  that  Lord  Arlington  will  represent 
his  case  to  the  king.  Had  he  cared  only  to  advance 
himself,  he  might  have  enjoyed  £40,000  or  £50,000 
a  year  beyond  seas ;  and  as  it  is,  he  “  as  good 
as  wants  bread.”  Gratitude  was  a  virtue  almost 


i4°  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

unknown  to  the  kings  of  his  time,  who  seemed  to 
consider  that  it  was  enough  honour  for  their  devoted 
subjects  to  sacrifice  home,  fortune,  and  life  for 
their  sakes,  and  Lord  Worcester  had  no  redress. 
In  1667  he  was  delivered  for  ever  from  hanging 
on  princes’  favours. 

It  is  from  the  letters  of  his  heir,  Henry,  after¬ 
wards  the  first  Duke  of  Beaufort,  that  we  gather  a 
pleasant  picture  of  an  English  family  in  the  days 
of  Charles  II.  Before  succeeding  to  the  marquisate, 
he  had  married  Elizabeth,  Lady  Beauchamp,  who, 
like  his  own  kindred,  had  suffered  much  for  the 
king.  Her  father,  the  good  Lord  Capel,  after 
defending  Colchester  for  his  royal  master  in  1648, 
had  followed  him  on  to  the  scaffold  in  1649  with 
a  serene  courage  unshaken  by  the  parting  with  wife 
and  children,  and  a  conscience  untroubled  save  by 
the  recollection  that  “  out  of  a  base  fear  and  carried 
away  with  the  violence  of  a  prevailing  faction  ”  he 
had  voted  for  the  death  of  Lord  Strafford. 

Shortly  after  Lord  Capel’s  death  Lord  Beauchamp 
fulfilled  the  traditions  of  his  race  by  going  to  the  Tower 
as  a  prisoner.  “It  seems  it  is  a  place  entailed  upon 
our  family,  for  we  have  now  held  it  five  generations,” 
wrote  Lord  Hertford  when  condoling  with  his  son. 
“  Yet  to  speak  the  truth  I  like  not  the  place  so  well 
but  that  I  could  be  very  well  contented  the  entail 
should  be  cut  off  and  settled  upon  some  other  family 
that  better  deserves  it.”  The  close  confinement 
broke  down  Lord  Beauchamp’s  health  ;  and  although 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  14 1 


he  was  released  on  very  heavy  bail  to  drink  the 
Epsom  waters,  he  never  recovered  from  it.  The 
exiled  Charles  II.  wrote  in  affectionate  terms  to 
bid  him  “  take  heed  of  melancholique ;  I  keep 
myself  from  it  as  well  as  I  can,  and  so  must  you.” 
Lord  Beauchamp  had  not  the  light  heart  of  Henri 
Quatre’s  grandson,  and  he  died  in  1654.  What¬ 
ever  may  have  been  Charles  II.’s  faults,  he  was  an 
ideal  correspondent,  and  his  letter  of  condolence  to 
Lady  Beauchamp,  written  from  Paris,  expresses  full 
sympathy  and  deep  respect  within  the  space  of  a 
few  lines  : 

“  If  the  part  I  have  borne  in  your  late  loss  could 
have  given  you  any  ease,  much  of  your  grief  would 
be  abated,  for  indeed  I  have  been  exceedingly 
troubled  at  it,  nor  can  I  have  many  more  such 
losses  ;  you  will  believe  I  will  do  my  part  to  repair 
what  can  be  recovered,  and  to  preserve  what  is  left, 
and  that  I  can  never  forget  what  I  owe  to  you  and 
yours,  who  shall  always  be  as  much  within  my 
particular  care  as  the  wife  of  such  a  husband 
and  the  daughter  of  such  a  father  ought  to  be,  to 
whose  memories  more  regard  cannot  be  paid  than 
is  due  from,  Madame,  your  very  affectionate  and 
constant  friend, 

“  Charles  R.” 

In  1657  the  widow  became  the  wife  of  Lord 
Herbert,  as  he  was  then  styled,  and  it  seems  to  have 


142 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


been  a  very  happy  marriage.  Business  of  State 
obliged  him,  after  the  Restoration,  to  spend  much 
of  his  time  in  London,  while  she  lived  chiefly  at 
Badminton,  looking  after  the  children,  the  gardens, 
and  the  property.  But  he  wrote  frequently  to  her, 
telling  her  all  the  news,  from  the  debates  in  the 
House  of  Lords  to  the  latest  fashions.  When  he 
went  with  others  to  meet  the  king  on  his  arrival  in 
England,  he  begged  Lady  Herbert  to  come  up  to 
London,  so  that  he  might  find  her  on  his  return, 
“  for  I  cannot  be  anywhere  with  any  contentment 
without  you.” 

Either  for  his  wife’s  sake  or  for  his  own,  Lord 
Herbert  enjoyed  royal  favour,  sometimes  at  great 
inconvenience  to  himself.  He  once  grumbles  to  his 
wife  at  being  dragged  out  by  the  king  to  hunt  with 
the  Duke  of  York,  who  kept  them  without  eating  or 
drinking  the  whole  of  the  day.  The  king,  with  great 
presence  of  mind,  slipped  away  when  the  hounds 
were  at  fault,  and  was  in  good  time  for  dinner  at 
my  Lord  St.  Albans’  ;  but  the  luckless  suite  were 
obliged  to  fast,  and  had  little  sport  to  console  them, 
as  the  duke’s  hounds  behaved  themselves  “  but  very 
lewdly.” 

Soon  after  becoming  Marquis  of  Worcester,  he  had 
the  honour  of  standing  godfather  to  one  of  the 
short-lived  sons  of  the  Duke  of  York,  “and  gave 
him  by  the  Duke’s  desire  the  name  of  Edgar,  the 
Duke  fancying  that  name  because  he  was  the  first 
King  that  had  the  dominion  of  the  seas,  which  he 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  143 


went  upon  about  the  kingdom,  every  year,  with  a 
thousand  ships.”  “  The  Duchess  would  fain  have 
had  it  James,  but  the  Duke  would  not,  because  he  had 
buried  one  of  that  name.”  Lord  Worcester,  with 
the  experienced  eye  of  a  father,  noticed  that  the 
child  was  small  and  not  very  well.  Having  learned 
what  was  customary  for  a  sponsor  on  these  occasions, 
he  sent  a  hundred  guineas  to  the  nurse  and  monthly 
nurse.  The  wealthy  old  Duchess  of  Richmond, 
when  she  stood  godmother  to  Charles  II.,  had 
presented  his  nurse  with  a  gold  chain  worth  £ 200 , 
the  monthly  nurse  and  dry-nurse  with  a  quantity  of 
plate,  and  each  of  his  rockers  with  a  silver  cup,  a 
salt-cellar,  and  a  dozen  spoons. 

Some  of  the  details  of  Lord  Worcester’s  household 
arrangements  are  very  curious.  He  was  trusted  by 
his  wife  to  engage  some  menservants.  Character, 
the  ability  to  clean  plate  and  wait  at  table,  and 
other  such  qualifications  had  not  much  weight  with 
him  ;  but  he  was  very  proud  of  finding  two  footmen 
that  could  play  the  violin.  He  also  found  another 
who  was  a  great  performer,  but  who  refused  to 
demean  himself  by  wearing  a  livery.  However,  as 
this  gifted  person  was  not  unwilling  to  give  music- 
lessons  to  any  of  the  household  who  were  desirous 
to  learn,  including  the  page,  Lord  Worcester  was 
delighted  to  engage  him. 

He  was  fond  of  his  children,  and  was  ready  to 
pleasure  them.  At  one  time  he  is  buying  a  pearl 
necklace  for  his  daughter  “  Mall,”  with  the  stipulation 


144 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


that  she  is  not  to  put  it  on  until  she  is  two  or  three 
years  older,  for  “  till  then  the  children  of  the  greatest 
quality  do  not  wear  any.”  The  set  is  handsome 
enough  for  her  to  wear  until  she  marries  ;  and  then, 
he  explains,  as  the  custom  is,  it  is  to  be  transferred 
to  her  younger  sister,  and  her  bridegroom,  or  his 
friends,  will  give  a  better  one  to  herself.  One  may 
imagine  the  pleasure  of  a  girl  when  her  elder  sister 
found  a  husband.  At  another  time  he  is  preparing 
to  send  a  coach  and  horses  to  his  son  at  Oxford, 
who  has  begged  for  one,  “  though  when  I  was  at 
Oxford  it  was  not  thought  necessary.”  Fathers 
and  sons  have  not  changed  since  those  days. 

Both  the  marquis  and  his  wife  were  fond  of 
sport — a  taste  which  has  continued  in  their  family. 
His  letters  are  full  of  references  to  hawks  and  dogs. 
His  foxhounds  were  so  good  that  the  Prince  of 
Orange,  when  he  came  over  to  England  as  the 
bridegroom  of  Mary  of  York,  begged  for  some  for 
his  own  pack,  but  begged  in  vain,  as  Lord  Worcester 
did  not  choose  to  spare  any.  The  white  and  pied 
pheasants  were  the  delight  of  Queen  Catherine 
when  she  visited  Badminton,  and  she  gave  such  a 
description  of  them  to  the  king  that  his  majesty 
swore  that  if  he  were  not  too  lazy  he  would  go  and 
see  them  himself.  Lady  Worcester  once  suggests 
that '  if  the  marquis  wishes  to  give  the  king  a 
present,  he  should  offer  him  a  young  peacock  and 
peahen  from  Badminton,  such  as  are  not  to  be  found 
elsewhere.  They  have  milk-white  heads  and  plumes, 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  145 


their  bodies  and  long  feathers  are  ash-coloured, 
spotted  with  black,  and  their  necks  are  like  those 
of  ordinary  peacocks  in  colour. 

The  Popish  Plot  gave  great  trouble  to  the  marquis, 
who  had  to  pass  many  weary  hours  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  also  to  his  wife,  who  found  that  his 
servants  were  writing  news  to  those  in  the  country, 
by  which  means  false  reports  were  spread  abroad. 
Accidentally  she  heard  that  the  usher  of  the  hall 
at  Badminton  had  received  a  letter,  and  she  insisted 
upon  seeing  it.  Finding  it  to  contain  some  very 
apocryphal  stories  of  “  Prance  and  Bedlow,”  she 
wrote  in  great  indignation  to  her  lord,  telling  him 
to  forbid  his  servants  to  write  news  to  their  fellows. 
In  her  opinion  they  would  do  better  to  mind  their 
own  business  and  leave  State  affairs  to  those  who 
ought  to  manage  them. 

The  queen  is  seldom  mentioned  in  these  letters  ; 
but  just  at  this  time  Lord  Worcester  had  an  audience 
of  her,  and  was  much  gratified  by  her  kindness  and 
consideration.  After  the  plot  the  queen  was  allowed 
to  retain  only  nine  ladies  about  her,  who  were  not 
obliged  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy.  Three  of 
these  were  ladies  of  the  bedchamber,  and  by  rights 
Lord  Worcester’s  sister  should  have  been  among 
them.  “  But  out  of  civility,”  explains  the  marquis, 
“she  thinks  she  could  do  no  less,  since  the  King 
stuck  to  her  and  showed  so  much  concern  for  her 
when  she  was  accused,  than  to  choose  the  Duchess 
of  Portsmouth  in  the  first  place.”  This  meant  that 

10 


146 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


the  two  other  ladies  would  have  to  be  continually 
on  duty — “  in  effect,  they  must  be  drudges  ”  ;  and 
the  queen,  thinking  such  close  attendance  would  be 
irksome  to  Lord  Worcester’s  sister,  was  minded  to 
excuse  her  from  accepting  the  post.  Yet  so  kind 
and  considerate  was  the  queen,  for  whom  others 
had  so  little  kindness  and  consideration,  that  she 
first  sent  to  Lord  Worcester  to  ask  if  his  sister 
would  agree  to  the  arrangement,  and  he  went  from 
a  stormy  meeting  in  the  council  chamber  “  to  give 
the  Queen  thanks  for  laying  my  sister  so  obligingly 
aside.” 

Lady  Worcester  must  have  had  sad  reason  to 
detest  the  very  name  of  the  plot.  Her  brother, 
Lord  Essex,  had  been  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland 
when  Plunket,  the  Roman  Catholic  Archbishop, 
was  condemned  to  death  for  participation  in  one  of 
these  imaginary  conspiracies.  He  now  begged  the 
king  to  save  Plunket’s  life,  protesting  that  from 
his  own  knowledge  he  was  certain  that  the  charge 
could  not  be  true.  “  His  blood  be  on  your  own 
conscience,  my  lord,”  was  the  king’s  answer;  “you 
might  have  saved  him  if  you  would.  I  cannot 
pardon  him  because  I  dare  not.” 

Lord  Essex  had  not  been  used  to  lack  courage 
or  spirit.  Among  the  Badminton  papers  is  one 
headed,  “  A  Character  of  Arthur,  Lord  Essex,”  which 
shows  what  could  be  said  in  his  favour,  and  was 
preserved  by  his  sister  after  the  unhappy  man  had 
been  driven  by  remorse  to  take  his  own  life.  In 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  147 


1670 — according  to  this  authority — he  was  sent  on 
on  embassy  to  the  King  of  Denmark,  and  when 
drawing  near  the  coast  was  informed  of  the  new 
rule,  that  all  ambassadors  should  strike  sail  to  the 
king’s  ships  as  they  passed  through  the  Sound,  under 
penalty  of  being  fired  upon  by  the  guns  of  Kronen- 
berg  ;  but  Lord  Essex  refused  either  to  strike  sail  or 
to  slink  past  the  ships  in  the  night  and  land  at  some 
distance  from  the  castle.  He  would  pass  it  at  four 
o’clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  those  who  were  afraid 
might  take  boat  and  land  elsewhere.  Three  shots 
from  the  castle  guns,  one  of  which  tore  his  rigging, 
had  no  power  to  deter  him,  and  he  passed  safely  to 
the  landing-place.  The  King  of  Denmark,  receiving 
an  account  of  this  from  the  governor  of  the  castle, 
sent  orders  that  Lord  Essex  should  be  received 
with  all  possible  respect,  and  escorted  “  with  the 
greatest  grandeur”  to  Copenhagen.  Accordingly 
“  the  Governor  and  Great  Officers  of  the  Court  ” 
went  to  wait  upon  his  excellency  on  the  following 
day,  and  offered  to  accompany  him  to  the  city. 
“But  His  Excellency  complained  that  the  Governor 
had  assaulted  his  ship,  tore  his  tackling  and  rigging, 
violated  the  privileges  of  an  Ambassador,  and  that 
it  did  not  become  him  to  proceed  any  further  till 
his  Master  was  righted  and  satisfaction  made  for 
the  affront  which  the  Governor  had  given  upon 
his  landing.  Thereupon  Commissioners  were  ap¬ 
pointed  to  examine  the  matter,  and  upon  the  hearing 
they  ordered  that  the  Governor  should  ask  His 


i48  unstoried  in  history. 

Excellency  forgiveness  on  his  knees  in  the  open 
street  before  his  lodgings  in  Kronenberg  ;  which  act 
was  publicly  performed  whilst  His  Excellency  stood 
in  his  balcony,  to  the  glory  of  the  King  of  England, 
and  the  honour  of  the  English  nation.” 

Ill-health  was  probably  the  cause  of  Lord  Essex’s 
want  of  moral  courage.  In  his  youth  he  had  been 
a  very  sickly  child,  and  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen, 
when  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Parliament,  “  had 
scarce  rid  ever  on  horseback,  or  been  out  of  the 
family.”  It  is  curious  that  in  the  “character”  the 
disastrous  conclusion  of  his  life  should  be  attributed 
to  the  influence  of  his  wife’s  cousin,  Algernon  Sidney, 
“  whose  conversation — and  some  others — misled 
him  to  all  those  errors  and  false  principles  which 
afterwards  brought  him  to  ruin.” 

Under  the  Stuarts,  Parliament  was  accustomed  to 
meet  wherever  it  was  summoned  ;  and  in  March,  1 68 1 , 
Lord  Worcester  attended  the  king  to  Oxford  for 
the  opening  of  “  the  Short  Parliament,”  as  it  was 
afterwards  called.  The  University,  always  loyal, 
received  the  king  with  enthusiasm,  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  to  foment  disorder  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 
and  his  party,  who  entered  the  town,  followed  by 
bands  of  armed  retainers  all  wearing  ribbons  in  their 
hats  with  the  device,  “  No  Popery  !  No  Slavery  !  ” 
Personally,  Lord  Worcester  did  not  enjoy  his  visit 
to  Oxford.  It  was  some  consolation  that  his  rooms 
and  furniture  in  Jesus  College  were  better  than 
those  of  the  king  in  Christchurch,  and  that  his 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  149 


bed  in  particular  looked  so  well  that,  according  to 
the  servants,  “  many  strangers  came  to  see  it.”  Yet 
he  would  far  rather  have  been  with  his  lady  walking 
in  and  out  among  the  workmen  at  Badminton  ;  and 
the  want  of  a  cross-post  from  Oxford  to  Bristol  was 
a  serious  inconvenience  to  him. 

On  March  25th  he  sends  his  wife  a  long  account 
of  a  remarkable  scene  in  the  Parliament.  Feeling 
on  both  sides  was  running  high.  A  new  informer, 
Fitzharris,  had  appeared  with  a  cock-and-bull  story 
of  an  attempt  to  poison  the  king,  made  by  the 
queen.  The  Commons  wished  to  impeach  him,  as 
a  means  of  giving  his  perjuries  the  widest  circulation. 
The  king  and  the  lords  were  determined  to  leave  him 
to  the  ordinary  course  of  law  as  a  common  libeller. 
Shaftesbury  and  some  of  the  lords  were  planning 
to  introduce  an  Exclusion  Bill,  to  which  the  king 
was  resolved  never  to  agree.  It  was  not  a  hopeful 
prospect  for  legislation,  and  Lord  Worcester  soon 
saw  that  the  situation  “  could  not  consist  with  long 
sitting.” 

“Yesterday  [March  24th]  Lord  Shaftesbury  comes 
up  smiling  to  our  end  of  the  House,  and  says  ‘  I 
have  an  expedient  put  into  my  hand  in  this  paper’ — 
which  he  showed — ‘  that  will  comply  with  the  King’s 
speech  and  satisfy  the  people,  too,’  and  this  he 
communicates  to  Lord  Chancellor.  I  being  near 
asked  him  whether  I  and  some  other  lords  by  me 
might  not  see  it.  ‘  No,’  says  he,  *  the  King  must  see 
it  first,  and  if  you  will  show  it  him — for  I  must 


i5o  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

not  come  up  to  him — then  you  shall  see  it.’  Lord 
Chancellor — who  would  not  leave  his  seat — said  to 
me  ‘  Pray,  my  Lord,  do.’  So  I  took  it  and  then 
carried  it  to  the  King,  thinking  it  truly  some  pleasant 
jest  intended  for  the  King  to  laugh  at,  for  so  it 
seemed  by  the  Chancellor  and  his  laughing,  and 
1  could  not  imagine  that  any  serious  man  could 
think  really  to  accommodate  all  things  between  the 
King  and  the  Parliament  in  six  lines,  which  was 
all  I  could  see  in  the  letter.  When  the  King  read 
it,  he  found  the  expedient  was  to  settle  the  Crown 
upon  the  Duke  of  Monmouth.  ‘  Ay  marry,’  says 
he,  ‘  here  is  an  expedient  indeed,  if  one  would 
trample  over  all  laws  of  God  and  man.’  Says  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  who  came  pretty  near  to  see  what 
would  follow,  ‘Sir,  will  you  give  me  leave  to  make 
it  as  lawful  as  we  can  ?  ’  ” 

Lord  Shaftesbury  had  been  nicknamed  “Shiftsbury” 
for  his  ingenious  devices,  but  this  last  was  more 
than  Charles  could  stomach.  He  burst  into  honest 
wrath,  and  gave  those  about  him  some  sharp  hits : 
“  Whoever  goes  about  such  things  can  be  no  better 
than  knaves.  By  the  Grace  of  God  I  will  stick  to  that 
that  is  law,  and  maintain  the  Church  as  it  is  now 
established,  and  not  be  of  a  religion  that  can  make 
all  things  lawful,  as  I  know  Presbytery  can,  and 
overrule  all  laws  that  do  not  advance  their  religion  ; 
and  in  that  they  are  ten  times  worse  than  the  Pope, 
for  though  he  will  have  all  things  under  him  that 
can  be  pressed  to  be  in  order  spiritualities,  he  allows 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  15 1 


it  to  be  argued  whether  they  are  so  or  not ;  but 
the  Presbyterians  twice  when  I  was  in  Scotland  came 
into  the  Parliament  house,  and  bade  them  proceed 
no  further  in  some  things  that  were  before  them,  for 
they  had  judged  them  to  intrench  upon  the  Kirk.” 

Lord  Shaftesbury  tried  to  cover  his  retreat  by 
saying  “  there  was  no  Church  nor  clergy  but  would 
impose  upon  the  Government,”  and  Lord  Worcester 
declared  that  the  Church  of  England  would  never 
do  so.  There  was  sense  as  well  as  cynicism  in 
Shaftesbury’s  retort  that  the  Church  of  England 
and  her  clergy  had  never  yet  been  in  sufficient 
power  and  authority  to  try ;  but  the  king  would 
hear  no  more.  “  I  hope  they  are  in  authority  now,” 
he  said,  “  and  I  will  not  be  for  lessening  it,  and 
if  I  do  I  know  I  lessen  my  crown,  for  we  must 
march  together.” 

The  son  of  the  martyr  was  speaking  in  words 
that  must  have  recalled  his  father,  but  with  more 
shrewdness  and  penetration  than  his  father  had 
ever  possessed  ;  and  while  Shaftesbury  and  his 
faction  slunk  away  abashed,  good  men  and  true 
rejoiced.  Lord  Worcester’s  delight  is  evident,  and 
after  concluding  his  letter  he  adds  a  hasty  postscript  : 
“  I  must  not  omit  one  very  good  reply  of  the  King’s 
to  Lord  Shaftesbury.  The  King,  speaking  of 
standing  by  the  Church  and  Government  [Constitu¬ 
tion]  though  he  had  never  so  few,  said  ‘  I  am  not 
like  others,  that  the  older  they  grow,  the  fearfullcr 
they  are.  I  think  the  less  we  can  live  according  to 


152  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

nature,  the  less  we  ought  to  value  one’s  life.’  ‘  Pray  ’ 
says  both  Lord  Chancellor  and  Lord  Shaftesbury, 
‘  do  not  be  so  unconcerned  for  your  life,  for  in  it 
depends  all  our  good.’  ‘  And  yet,’  says  the  King, 
‘  I  am  the  only  Arbitrary  Man .’  ”  * 

Could  Charles  have  always  acted  and  spoken 
thus  loftily,  the  Stuarts  might  now  be  sitting  on  the 
throne  of  England.  But  his  better  self  woke  only 
in  starts  and  flashes,  and  there  were  too  many 
about  him  ready  to  lull  it  to  sleep  again. 

In  a  few  days  Charles  dissolved  the  Parliament, 
and  returned  to  London,  accompanied  by  Lord 
Worcester. 

Shortly  afterwards,  having  searched  in  vain  for 
some  years,  the  marquis  succeeded  in  buying  a 
house  in  town.  At  one  time  he  offered  to  rent 
a  house  from  Lord  Paget ;  but  as  he  would  only 
consent  to  give  ^ioo  a  year,  besides  paying 
the  wages  of  the  housekeeper  and  gardener,  and 
Lord  Paget  would  not  be  satisfied  with  less  than 
£200,  the  bargain  was  never  concluded.  With 
Lady  Worcester’s  approval,  he  now  bought  Lady 
Bristol’s  house  at  Chelsea  for  £5, 000,  and  was  well 
pleased  with  it.  The  water  supply,  brought  from 
Kensington  in  pipes,  was  very  good,  and  the  road 
leading  to  the  house  was  so  dry  that  he  was  generally 
able  to  walk  from  it  to  Lord  Arlington’s  in  a  quarter 
of  an  hour,  and  to  keep  on  the  highway.  This  was 
indeed  an  unusual  advantage  for  Londoners  in  the 
*  The  italics  are  Lord  Worcester’s. 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  153 


seventeenth  century.  In  the  year  in  which  Lord 
Worcester  bought  his  hoilse  Viscountess  Campden 
wrote  to  her  husband  to  complain  of  the  difficulty 
of  shopping,  as  she  could  not  alight  from  her  coach 
in  the  streets  without  being  “  overshoes.” 

When  Charles  II.  took  leave  of  his  Parliament  before 
going  down  to  Portsmouth  to  greet  his  queen  on 
her  arrival  in  England,  his  last  instructions  to  his 
faithful  Commons  were  :  “  The  mention  of  my  wife’s 
arrival  puts  me  in  mind  to  desire  you  to  put  that 
compliment  upon  her  that  her  entrance  into  this 
town  may  be  made  with  more  decency  than  the 
ways  will  now  suffer  it  to  be ;  and  to  that  purpose 
I  pray  you  would  quickly  pass  such  laws  as  are 
before  you,  in  order  to  the  mending  those  ways, 
that  she  may  not  find  Whitehall  surrounded  with 
water.”  The  condition  of  the  roads  round  Whitehall 
was  incredibly  bad.  It  was  at  this  time  that  a  little 
boy  named  George  Clarke  (afterwards  a  person  of 
some  reputation),  riding  with  his  parents  in  one 
of  the  new  glass  coaches  that  had  just  come  into 
fashion,  was  thrown  out  into  the  road  “  over  against 
the  Horse  Guards  at  Whitehall.”  The  wheels  of  the 
coach  “  went  pretty  fast  ”  over  both  his  legs  ;  but 
so  deep  was  the  hole  in  the  pavement  into  which 
he  fell  that  he  “  received  no  prejudice  on  them.” 

The  mention  of  the  “  new  glass  coaches  ”  recalls 
the  fact  that  on  their  introduction  into  this  country 
they  were  viewed  with  distrust  by  old-fashioned 
persons,  as  being  not  only  unsafe,  but  unhealthy. 


i54 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


Mary  Fitzjames  wrote  to  her  sister,  Lady  Harley 
(wife  of  Sir  Edward),  in  1662  :  “If  I  might  advise 
you  I  would  not  by  no  means  have  you  venture 
your  boy  in  a  coach,  for  I  verily  believe  it  was  my 
first  boy’s  death,  and  lately  my  cousin  Churchill 
brought  down  a  boy  in  a  coach  which  was  never 
well  after  it,  but  died.” 

Soon  after  getting  into  his  new  house,  Lord 
Worcester  was  informed  that  the  king  would  be 
graciously  pleased  to  make  him  a  duke.  For 
the  sake  of  the  descent  from  the  old  dukes  of 
Somerset,  of  which  his  predecessor,  the  Marquis 
Edward,  had  always  been  mindful,  he  chose  Beau¬ 
fort  for  the  first  title,  and  was  afterwards  vexed  to 
find  that  it  was  not  the  one  which  his  wife  would 
have  preferred.  His  honours  seem  to  have  had  a 
bad  effect  on  his  temper,  for  his  letters  at  this 
time  are  full  of  complaints :  “  much  worried  with 
his  own  and  other  people’s  business — turned  out  of 
bed  this  morning  early  in  the  ugliest  mist  ever 
seen  or  smelt,  to  wait  upon  the  king  on  behalf 
of  one  Captain  Matthews — feels  it  necessary  to  be 
more  at  Court  than  usual,  which  is  no  great  delight.” 

The  letters  are  now  fewer  in  number,  probably 
because  the  possession  of  the  house  in  Chelsea 
gave  husband  and  wife  more  opportunities  of  being 
together.  There  is  a  romantic  story  of  buried 
treasure  in  a  letter  dated  June,  1687.  The  Duke 
of  Albemarle  had  knowledge  of  a  Spanish  ship, 
laden  with  silver,  that  was  lying  at  the  bottom 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  155 


of  the  sea  off  the  coast  of  Florida,  and  tried  to 
form  a  company  to  recover  it.  Lord  Sunderland, 
Lord  Portsmouth,  and  others  refused  to  take  any 
share  in  the  speculation,  and  the  project  “  went 
a-begging  for  a  great  while.”  Now  the  silver  was 
found,  and  the  duke’s  share  already  came  to  between 
forty  and  fifty  thousand  pounds.*  One  of  his 
partners,  Sir  Richard  Hoddock,  had  unwisely  sold 
his  hundred-pound  share  a  month  or  two  previously  ; 
had  he  kept  it,  he  would  have  had  ,£8,000. 

The  landing  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  1688 
caused  great  anxiety  and  disturbance  throughout 
the  country ;  and  the  Duchess  of  Beaufort,  who 
knew  only  too  well  the  horrors  of  civil  war,  suffered 
much.  She  wrote  to  the  duke  from  Badminton 
on  December  15th: 

“  Last  night  at  two  o’clock  Mr.  Cothrington  sends 
me  a  letter  that  he  had  certain  intelligence  that  a 
great  body  of  Irish  were  come  within  five  mile  of 
Wootton  Basset  and  that  they  burned  and  killed 
all  as  they  came  along.  Some  of  your  servants, 
being  towards  Anton,  saw,  as  they  said,  a  regiment 
of  dragoons  march  through  to  Malmesbury  in  the 
evening.  I  wished  him  to  send  to  give  them  notice. 
This  morning,  by  that  time  it  was  light,  he  came 
hither,  he  sent  his  brother  to  Malmesbury,  who 
returned  him  an  answer  that  Andover  was  burnt ; 

*  The  Duke  of  Albemarle  ventured  only  .£8oo,  and  his  share 
is  said  by  Charles  Bertie  ultimately  to  have  been  valued  at 
^500,000,  which  seems  scarcely  probable. 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


TS6 

with  this  he  and  I  thought  it  but  a  story,  and  I 
was  pretty  quiet  ;  but  about  eleven  o’clock  he  comes 
with  a  troop  of  gentlemen  he  said  that  were  come 
to  defend  me,  and  to  be  directed  by  me  what  to 
do,  but  with  news  that  Reading  and  Newbury 
was  burnt,  and  that  they  *  were  come  as  far  as 
Marlborough.  I  thanked  them,  and  wished  them 
to  march  up,  for  that  it  was  always,  I  have  heard, 
better  to  fight  an  enemy  out  of  one’s  own  country. 
But  still  they  delayed  going  away  ;  at  last  he  came 
and  told  me  they  wanted  arms  and  heard  I  had 
some  here,  and  cannon.  I  told  them  I  had  about 
sixty  muskets  to  defend  the  house,  and  that  it  would 
be  strange  that  gentlemen  that  came  to  assist  me 
should  take  away  what  I  had  to  defend  me.” 

Nevertheless,  her  defenders  insisted  upon  carrying 
off  the  muskets,  and  the  duchess  was  obliged  to 
content  herself  with  making  a  note  of  their  names. 
“  The  country  is  in  a  great  disturbance  ;  I  trust  you 
are  safe  where  you  are.”  Woman-like,  she  adds  :  “  I 
would  not  for  anything  in  the  world  you  were  here. 
I  hope  in  God  all  will  be  quiet  again  in  a  little 
time,  the  hopes  that  you  are  safe  makes  me  very 
courageous.”  Her  danger  was  real  enough.  She 
was  assured  “  by  very  sober  people  ”  that  within 
less  than  twenty  miles  of  Badminton  “  there  were 
many  more  than  twenty  thousand  up,  and  the  rabble 
extreme  rude,”  not  only  threatening  the  duchess, 
but  “  most  that  were  in  commission.”  Luckily  the 


*  l.e.  the  Irish. 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  157 


alarm  subsided.  News  came  from  a  reliable  person 
that  Salisbury  and  the  other  towns  were  not  on 
fire,  after  all ;  and  this  being  proclaimed  throughout 
the  country-side,  the  different  troops  that  had  been 
hurriedly  raised  were  quietly  dismissed,  “and  the 
country-people  promised  to  go  home  to  their  houses 
and  settle  to  work.” 

This  is  the  last  scene  of  interest  in  which  we  find 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Beaufort  taking  part.  He 
died  in  1699,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  grandson, 
while  she  survived  to  extreme  old  age,  dying  in  1715* 

#  * 

* 

For  the  best  picture  of  fashionable  life  under 
Charles  II.  and  his  successors  we  must  turn  to 
another  calendar  of  the  Rutland  papers,  and  make 
a  selection  from  the  letters  addressed  to  John,  Lord 
Roos,  afterwards  Earl  and  Duke  of  Rutland,  and 
to  his  wife,  Katherine  Noel,  by  different  corre¬ 
spondents.  Three  sons  of  the  Countess  Elizabeth 
whom  we  already  know  became  in  turn  Earl  of 
Rutland.  On  the  death  of  the  last  he  was  succeeded 
by  his  cousin,  John  Manners,  great-grandson  of 
Thomas,  the  first  earl.  He  was  of  a  peaceable  and 
retiring  disposition,  living  on  his  estates,  and  not 
concerning  himself  with  public  affairs.  His  married 
daughter,  Grace,  Lady  Chaworth,  was  of  a  different 
nature,  going  here,  there,  and  everywhere  in  the 
gay  world,  and  sending  full  accounts  of  all  that 
she  saw  and  heard  to  her  brother,  Lord  Roos. 


158  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

Lord  Roos  was  even  more  averse  to  society  than 
his  father.  In  horse-racing,  gardening,  and  other 
country  pastimes  he  was  keenly  interested ;  but 
even  the  wish  of  the  sovereign  and  his  own  duty  as 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Lords  were  insufficient 
to  draw  him  to  town.  “Jack  will  never  do  either 
himself  or  family  good,’’  was  his  mother’s  verdict 
on  him.  His  domestic  troubles  may  have  induced 
these  unsociable  ways.  His  first  wife  was  Lady 
Anne  Pierrepoint,  whom  he  was  obliged  to  divorce 
in  1668.  A  letter  from  a  certain  Mr.  Alsopp  to  the 
Countess  of  Rutland  shows  the  manner  in  which 
a  divorce  Bill  was  then  taken  through  Parliament : 
“  On  Wednesday  last,  with  the  -approbation  of  Mr. 
Attorney  and  Mr.  George  Montagu,  I  got  six  and 
forty  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  the  Dog  Tavern 
in  the  Palace  yard  at  Westminster,  and  gave  them 
a  dinner,  where  was  present  Mr.  Attorney  and 
Mr.  George  Montagu  ;  my  Lord  Roos  was  taken 
with  a  fit  of  the  colic,  and  was  forced  to  run  away 
after  dinner,  and  as  soon  as  they  had  dined,  we 
carried  them  all  to  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
they  passed  the  bill,  as  the  Committee,  without 
any  amendment,  and  ordered  it  to  be  reported  the 
next  day.” 

The  second  Lady  Roos,  Lady  Diana  Bruce,  died 
after  a  year  of  married  life  in  1672.  A  letter  from 
Lady  Chaworth,  written  soon  after  her  brother’s 
third  marriage,  which  took  place  in  less  than  a 
year,  says  naively,  “  I  thought  to  have  sent  your 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  159 


Lordship  your  last  lady’s  picture  from  Mr.  Lely’s  * 
this  week.”  One  is  reminded  of  Lord  Sheffield 
calling  upon  his  sister,  the  settlements  of  his  third 
wife  in  one  pocket,  the  likeness  of  his  second  in 
the  other. 

Lady  Chaworth’s  own  wedded  life  was  not  entirely 
serene.  In  the  early  days  of  her  marriage  no  less 
a  person  than  Doctor  Jeremy  Taylor  reported  upon 
her  condition  to  her  mother,  and  bore  witness  that 
“  she  really  believes  herself  a  very  happy  person, 
and  is  confident  it  will  every  day  increase.  And 
therefore,”  continues  Doctor  Taylor,  with  the  sound 
sense  and  knowledge  of  human  nature  of  many  of 
our  old  divines,  “  I  humbly  conceive  that  if  ever 
you  have  noted  or  heard  of  any  overtures  of 
unkindness  between  them,  your  honour  will  think 
it  fit  to  fake  no  notice  of  it ;  for  nothing  is  so 
great  a  security  to  love  as  never  to  remember  any 
unkindness  ;  but  when  things  are  well  to  suppose 
them  that  they  were  ever  so ;  and  though  they 
are  better  now,  and  still  grow  better  every  day,  yet 
they  were  never  ill,  unless  any  accident  or  violence 
of  chance  might  casually  intervene.  Madam,  we 
all  know  that  you  are  wise  and  a  great  lover 
of  your  children’s  happiness,  and  in  this  particular 
your  Ladyship  can  never  better  consult  to  the 
comfort  of  your  excellent  daughter,  than  by  being 

*  Mr.  Lely  was  often  employed  to  paint  portraits  of  the 
Manners  family,  but  Lady  Chaworth  complains  that  he  made 
“  all  men,  blacker,  older,  and  moroser  than  they  are.” 


i6o  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

curious  to  avoid  any  mention  of  any  unkindness 
that  ever  could  have  been  supposed  to  have  been 
offered  to  her.” 

Jeremy  Taylor’s  good  advice  may  have  been 
taken  by  Lady  Rutland,  but  it  availed  little  with 
Lady  Chaworth,  whose  differences  with  her  husband 
increased  as  time  passed.  Among  the  Belvoir  papers 
is  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  Lord  Chaworth  to  a 
certain  Mr.  Brook  which  suggests  a  stormy  scene  : 

“  I  do  hear  from  good  hands  that  you  should 
report  that  I  should  speak  very  ill-favoured  things 
to  you  at  London  concerning  my  wife — which  I  do 
and  will  maintain  is  a  damned  lie.  If  you  said  any 
such  thing  I  would  advise  you  to  eat  your  words 
immediately,  else — by  the  living  God,  I’ll  cram  them 
down  your  throat  with  my  sword,  and  that  very 
shortly.  If  you  love  yourself,  set  your  hand  to  this 
enclosed,  else  take  what  follows. 

“  So  I  remain.  To  serve  you. 

“  Chaworth.” 

Two  years  later  Lady  Chaworth  left  her  husband, 
and  took  refuge  at  Lord  Roos’s  house  in  Great 
Queen  Street.  The  families  on  both  sides  did  their 
best  to  bring  the  couple  to  an  agreement,  and  Lord 
Chaworth  wrote  in  very  proper  terms  to  his  wife, 
asking  her  to  come  back  to  him,  and  promising 
her  a  fit  reception.  For  some  time  Lady  Chaworth 
deigned  no  answer ;  and  when  she  did  send  one, 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  161 


her  husband  did  not  approve  of  it.  He  forwarded 
it  to  her  mother  with  the  comment,  “  I  do  not  take 
this  enclosed  to  be  an  answer  to  my  expectation — for 
the  thing  is — whether  she  will  come,  or  she  will  not.” 

How  matters  were  settled  in  the  end  does  not 
appear ;  but  Lady  Chaworth’s  sorrows,  far  from 
making  her  a  recluse,  only  flung  her  more  deeply 
into  the  midst  of  Society  and  its  pleasures.  She  was 
devotedly  fond  of  Lord  Roos  and  his  children,  and 
took  a  keen  interest  in  the  state  of  his  health  and 
the  state  of  his  garden.  He  was  somewhat  melan¬ 
cholic,  and  she  sends  him  Hudibras  and  “  valued 
Cyprus  wine  ”  as  a  cordial,  while  he  returned  the 
civility  with  venison,  oat-cakes,  and  “  the  best  brawn 
and  fattest  rabbits.”  Nearly  every  letter  from  her 
mentions  some  plants  or  seeds  that  she  is  pro¬ 
curing  for  him— melon-seed,  orange-trees,  lemon- 
trees,  pomegranates,  jessamine,  red  tuberoses,  and 
Guernsey  lilies. 

As  indefatigable  a  correspondent  as  Lady  Chaworth 
was  Lady  Mary  Bertie,  aunt  to  Lord  Roos’s  third 
wife,  Katherine  Noel,  who  wrote  continually  to  her 
niece,  with  whom  she  was  on  the  most  affectionate 
terms. 

The  fashions  of  course  were  the  most  interesting 
subject  for  country  readers,  and  the  great  ball  given 
every  year  on  the  queen’s  birthday  was  the  chief 
occasion  on  which  they  might  be  studied.  In  1670 
Lady  Mary  tells  her  niece  that  most  ladies  are 
wearing  embroidered  bodices  with  plain  black  skirts 


162 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


of  morella,  mohair,  or  prunella,  with  a  rich  under¬ 
petticoat  trimmed  with  two  or  three  kinds  of  lace, 
the  ordinary  cost  of  which  is  fifty  or  sixty  pounds. 

Scented  bodices  were  a  refinement  of  fashion  very 
necessary  at  a  time  when  personal  cleanliness  was 
little  practised,  but  the  wearing  of  them  sometimes 
led  to  awkward  consequences.  A  certain  Mrs.  Lee 
who  came  to  dance  country  dances  with  Lady  Mary 
was  taken  so  ill  as  the  result  of  wearing  “  a  pair 
of  perfumed  bodices  ”  that  Lady  Mary  was  forced 
then  and  there  to  put  her  to  bed  in  her  own  bed. 
“  She  would  fain  have  lain  with  me  all  night,  but 
her  grandmother  sent  a  chair  for  her,  and  would 
have  her  home,  but  she  hath  not  been  very  well 
ever  since.” 

Much  feminine  jealousy  was  provoked  on  one  of 
the  queen’s  birthdays  by  the  rich  array  of  a  certain 
Miss  Frazer,  who  spent  £300  on  her  dress.  Her 
rank,  as  daughter  of  one  of  the  queen’s  physicians, 
did  not  warrant  such  an  outlay,  and  her  robes  of 
“  ermine  upon  velvet  embroidered  with  gold  and 
lined  with  cloth  of  gold  ”  must  have  made  dancing 
an  impossibility.  It  was  some  satisfaction  to  the 
other  ladies  that  her  admirer,  Sir  Carr  Scrope, 
took  fright  at  her  extravagance,  and  declared  that 
he  could  not  marry  her,  as  his  estate  would  hardly 
pay  for  her  clothes.  Lord  Worcester  in  one  of  his 
letters  to  his  wife  confesses  that  he  had  been  unable 
to  present  himself  at  Court  for  one  of  the  celebrations 
of  the  queen’s  birthday,  not  considering  the  time 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  163 


suited  for  dancing  (it  was  just  after  the  great  fire), 
and  having  no  clothes  grand  enough  for  the  occasion, 
as  he  heard  that  “  no  one  was  to  be  smiled  on  by 
the  Queen  ”  who  did  not  appear  in  splendid  apparel. 

The  queen’s  name  seldom  appears  in  any  of  the 
letters,  and  it  is  evident  that  she  was  a  person  of 
no  importance  in  her  husband’s  Court.  When  she 
first  arrived  in  England,  and  was  a  new  toy  for  the 
blase  king,  there  are  occasional  praises  of  her  sweet¬ 
ness  and  naivete ,  and  hopeful  auguries  are  drawn 
from  Charles’s  attentiveness  to  her — auguries  which 
were  never  to  be  fulfilled.  The  prettiest  description 
of  her  as  she  was  in  the  first  weeks  of  her  marriage, 
before  neglect  and  insult  had  broken  her  spirit  and 
faded  her  comeliness,  is  in  a  letter  from  Edward 
Moore,  a  North  Country  gentleman,  to  his  wife, 
Dorothy  Fenwick  : 

“  I  have  seen  the  young  Queen  who  is  the  very 
picture  of  modesty,  and  indeed  the  pattern  of  all 
good  wives,  for  it  is  crediable  [sic]  reported  she 
is  the  most  obedient  to  the  King  that  ever  was, 
and  will  not  do  anything  in  the  least  which  may 
but  seem  to  displease  His  Majesty.  I  could  wish, 
as  all  the  wives  of  England  are  ready  to  imitate 
her  in  attire,  they  might  be  obliged  to  follow  her 
in  her  virtues  and  obedience  to  her  husband. 
By  no  means  she  can  be  persuaded  to  look  in 
a  glass  (she  both  hates  patching  and  painting  so 
much) ;  in  a  word,  if  she  hold  on,  there  never 
came  such  a  lady  to  England.  Every  morning  by 


164 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


seven  of  the  clock  she  goes  to  her  devotions  in  her 
study,  privately,  where  she  stays  one  hour  and  a 
half,  then  at  nine  of  the  clock  goes  to  the  chapel 
where  she  hears  mass,  and  afterwards  spends  the 
day  much  in  being  alone,  and  if  crowd  of  company 
will  permit,  then  in  devotion.” 

The  “  crowd  of  company  ”  would  not  often  permit 
the  queen  to  be  alone  ;  in  her  time  Royalty  slept, 
dressed,  ate,  drank,  undressed,  sickened,  was  born, 
and  died  surrounded  by  a  throng  of  sightseers. 
A  few  years  later,  when  Catherine  had  been 
at  death’s  door  with  a  fever,  she  was  obliged  to 
receive  an  ambassador  from  the  King  of  France, 
who  delivered  condolences  on  her  illness  as  she  lay 
in  bed,  although  she  was  still  so  deaf  that  it  was 
difficult  to  make  her  hear  a  word,  and  was  still 
subject  to  fits  of  delirium.  Mr.  Moore  concludes 
his  portrait  of  the  queen  in  these  words  :  “  She  eats 
but  very  little,  especially  flesh  meat.  It  is  generally 
believed  the  King  loves  her  very  passionately.” 

Soon  after  her  arrival  came  the  struggle  between 
Lady  Castlemaine  and  herself,  which  ended,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  in  the  total  discomfiture  of  the 
innocent  young  woman  by  the  insolent  favourite. 
Most  of  Lord  Rutland’s  correspondents  notice  her  as 
little  as  did  her  husband’s  courtiers.  Lady  Campden, 
writing  to  her  daughter,  Lady  Roos,  once  takes 
occasion  to  mention  that  the  queen  is  much  dis¬ 
pleased  with  her  treasurer,  Lord  Clarendon,  who 
has  never  vouchsafed  to  give  her  a  statement  of 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  165 


accounts  during  the  whole  of  his  term  of  office, 
and  has  taken  notice  of  it  “  to  my  Lady  Clarendon, 
publicly,  at  Court,  which  put  her  to  the  blush.”  Such 
a  proceeding  showed  great  want  of  taste  on  the 
part  of  the  queen,  but  the  provocation  was  extreme. 
The  irregularity  with  which  her  income  as  queen- 
consort  was  paid  obliged  her  to  use  many  economies, 
which  earned  for  her  the  reputation  of  meanness  ; 
but  that  she  could  be  both  generous  and  kind  is 
proved  by  a  story  told  of  her  in  one  of  Lady 
Chaworth’s  letters  : 

“  The  Queen  did  a  great  act  of  charity  on  Sunday 
morning,  going  to  Somerset  House  to  her  devotions. 
They  saw  a  man  drowning,  and  she  made  her  boat 
make  up  to  rescue  him,  which  they  had  the  luck 
to  do,  but  took  him  in  appearance  dead  into  her 
boat  till  they  got  another  to  remove  him  into.  After 
some  hours  he  came  to  life,  and  the  next  day  went 
to  give  Her  Majesty  thanks,  who  was  pleased  both 
to  see  him  and  give  him  five  guineas,  [he]  being 
some  poor  tradesman.” 

The  same  authority  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  one 
of  Catherine’s  few  happy  days  during  a  bright 
September  when  the  Court  was  at  Windsor : 

“  All  the  Queen’s  servants  treated  her  by  every 
one’s  bringing  their  dish,  who  then  attended  her  into 
the  forest,  and  she  ate  under  a  tree.  Lady  Bath’s 
dish  was  a  chine  of  beef,  Mrs.  Windham’s,  a  venison 
pasty  ;  but  Mr.  Hall  brought  two  dozen  of  ruffs  and 
reeves  and  delicate  baskets  of  fruit,  Mr.  Chiffinch 


i66 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


for  his  daughter’s  behalf  twelve  dozen  of  choice 
wine.  The  Queen  wonderfully  pleased  and  merry, 
and  none  but  herself  and  servants.” 

Dancing  was  the  favourite  amusement  of  the 
queen,  in  spite  of  her  awkward  figure,  and  the  Court 
was  always  at  work  rehearsing  ballets.  One  per¬ 
formed  by  the  queen,  the  Duchesses  of  Buckingham, 
Richmond,  and  Monmouth,  Mrs.  Berkeley,  and 
“  Madame  Kerrwell,  the  French  Maid  of  Honour,” 
was  so  thickly  attended  by  spectators  that  Lady 
Mary  Bertie  was  forced  to  go  to  the  “  great 
Hall,”  where  it  was  to  be  danced,  at  four  o’clock, 
although  it  did  not  begin  till  nine  or  ten. 

Fencing  was  an  amusement  practised  by  some 
of  the  ladies.  The  Duchesse  Mazarin  and  the 
Countess  of  Sussex,  having  taken  lessons,  went  down 
into  St.  James’s  Park  with  swords  under  their 
“  nightgowns  ”  (evening  dresses),  and  exchanged 
several  passes,  “  to  the  admiration  of  several  men  that 
was  lookers  on.”  Any  exercise  that  kept  them  warm 
must  have  been  grateful,  for  this  was  in  the  December 
of  1 676,  when  the  snow  and  frost  were  terrible, 
and  the  king  drove  all  over  “  his  fine  canals  of  St. 
James’s  ”  in  a  sledge,  “  after  the  Muscovite  fashion,” 
and  the  newly  married  Duchess  of  York  pelted  her 
elderly  husband  with  snowballs,  and  took  refuge 
from  him  in  her  closet. 

Lady  Sussex’s  name  appears  frequently  in  the 
letters,  generally  in  connection  with  that  of  Madame 
Mazarin.  It  was  a  singular  friendship.  Madame 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION,  167 


Mazarin  at  more  than  thirty  years  of  age  still 
retained  the  marvellous  beauty  that  had  taken 
captive  the  heart  of  Charles  II.  when  he  was  only 
a  king  without  a  kingdom  and  she  was  Hortense 
Mancini,  the  loveliest  of  the  nieces  of  the  Cardinal 
who  ruled  France.  Finding  it  impossible  to  live 
with  her  husband,  who  was  more  than  half  mad, 
she  fled  from  his  home,  and  after  many  wanderings 
came  to  the  Court  of  her  old  lover. 

Charles,  careless  and  good-natured  as  he  was,  never 
forgot  a  slight  put  upon  him  in  the  time  of  his  dis¬ 
tresses,  and  still  remembered  that  his  proposals  for 
Hortense  had  twice  been  rejected  by  her  uncle  ;  but 
he  was  well  pleased  to  give  her  a  refuge  from  a  miser¬ 
able  existence,  especially  as  her  arrival  in  England 
delivered  him  from  his  tyrant,  the  Duchess  of 
Cleveland,  who,  in  a  paroxysm  of  jealousy,  packed 
up  her  goods  and  betook  herself  to  France.  Lady 
Sussex,  the  daughter  of  Charles  II.  and  the  Duchess 
of  Cleveland,  was  a  merry  little  romp  and  a  great 
favourite  with  her  royal  father,  who  was  often  to 
be  found  amusing  himself  in  her  rooms.  Madame 
Mazarin  made  a  pet  and  plaything  of  the  light¬ 
hearted  girl,  and  the  two  were  almost  inseparable. 
Lady  Chaworth  saw  them  standing  on  a  balcony 
in  Cheapside  with  the  Prince  of  Monaco,  and  the 
“  Portingall  ”  ambassador,  looking  at  the  fireworks 
which  were  being  let  off  in  the  crowd  below  to 
celebrate  Lord  Mayor’s  day.  Lady  Chaworth  had 
the  good-fortune  to  escape  unhurt,  but  the  balcony 


i68 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


was  the  target  for  many  squibs,  one  of  which, 
lighting  on  Lady  Sussex’s  forehead,  “  forced  her 
to  put  on  a  huge  patch.” 

Lord  Sussex  did  not  approve  of  his  wife’s  intimacy 
with  the  duchesse,  and  presently  announced  that 
Lady  Sussex  and  he  must  part  for  ever  unless  she 
would  be  content  to  say  good-bye  to  the  Court 
and  live  quietly  with  him  in  the  country.  To  one 
who  had  been  reared  at  Whitehall  this  was  the 
most  terrible  fate  that  could  be  imagined.  “  You 
little  beast,”  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  was  heard 
to  say  to  a  dog  that  ran  between  his  legs,  “  I  wish 
you  was  married  and  lived  in  the  country !  ”  An 
opportune  illness  delayed  the  fulfilment  of  the 
threat,  but  all  too  soon  “  Lord  Sussex  is  well 
again  and  continues  peremptory  to  take  his  wife 
out  of  town,  and  she  is  to  conclude  dancing  with 
the  ball  to-night  at  the  duchess’s,*  and  goes  out 
of  town,  they  say,  to-morrow,  or  the  next  day.” 
Luckily  the  cold  weather  made  travelling  impossible, 
and  gave  Lady  Sussex  another  respite,  which  she 
improved  by  taking  fencing-lessons,  as  we  have 
seen,  with  Madame  Mazarin.  A  few  weeks  later  she 
is  in  the  country  with  her  husband,  and  with  the 
happy  disposition  of  childhood  is  “  mightily  pleased 
with  fox-hunting  and  hare-hunting,”  although  she 
still  kisses  Madame  Mazarin’s  picture  “  with  much 
affection.” 

It  was  a  disorderly  and  riotous  Court,  and  Lord 
*  Maria  Beatrice  d'Este,  Duchess  of  York 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  169 


Sussex  was  not  to  be  blamed  for  wishing  to  with¬ 
draw  his  child-wife  from  it.  The  following  story 
sent  to  Lord  Roos  about  a  fortnight  after  Lady 
Sussex’s  departure  is  almost  incredible :  “  His 

Majesty,  whom  God  preserve,  went  on  Monday 
last  to  Windsor  to  see  his  workmen,  and  with 
a  design  to  stay  all  the  week  there,  but  on 
Wednesday  night  some  of  his  courtiers  fell  to 
their  cups  and  drank  away  all  reason,  at  last  they 
began  to  despise  art  too,  and  brake  into  Prince 
Rupert’s  laboratory,  and  dashed  his  stills  and  other 
chemical  instruments  in  pieces.  His  Majesty  went 
to  bed  about  twelve  o’clock,  but  about  two  or 
three  o’clock  one  of  Henry  Killigrew’s  men  was 
stabbed  in  the  company  in  the  next  chamber  to 
the  King.  They  say  he  murdered  himself  amongst 
them  because  of  some  distaste  betwixt  his  master 
and  him  ;  how  it  was,  God  knows  ;  but  the  Duke  ran 
speedily  to  His  Majesty’s  bed,  and  drew  the  curtain, 
and  said,  ‘  Sir,  will  you  lie  in  bed  till  you  have  your 
throat  cut?’  whereupon  His  Majesty  got  up  at  three 
o’clock  in  the  night  and  came  immediately  away 
to  Whitehall.”  The  Killigrews  were  always  in  well- 
merited  disgrace  for  some  piece  of  audacity,  but 
their  pranks  were  not  always  of  a  character  to  bear 
repetition. 

Where  the  courtiers  allowed  themselves  so  much 
freedom  the  lower  classes  could  not  be  expected 
to  have  any  high  standard,  and  crime  of  every  sort 
was  prevalent,  in  spite  of  the  severity  of  the  laws. 


i7o  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

Robberies  were  frequent  and  audacious.  One  day 
the  Duke  of  York’s  closet  was  found  broken  open  ; 
the  chest  and  cabinet  in  it  had  also  been  forced 
and  all  his  papers  taken,  although  his  money, 
watches,  and  plate  were  left  untouched.  Popular 
report  said  that  his  duchess  (Anne  Hyde)  had  done 
it  in  her  search  for  love-letters,  but  Lady  Chaworth 
considered  that  she  was  too  sensible  to  commit  such 
an  act  of  violence,  and  also  too  ill,  “  being  at  this 
time  broken  out  in  several  places  of  her  face  and 
body.”  At  another  time  thieves  broke  through  a 
window  of  the  Lord  Chancellor’s  house  in  Queen 
Street,  and  stole  the  mace  and  the  two  purses. 
There  are  frequent  allusions  in  these  letters  to 
Blood’s  audacious  attempt  upon  the  Crown  jewels. 

It  was  not  safe  for  any  one  to  traverse  the  streets 
unarmed  after  nightfall.  The  few  watchmen,  who 
were  supposed  to  guard  against  fire,  thieves,  and 
other  dangers  of  the  night,  knew  better  than  to 
see  or  hear  anything  unusual.  One  of  Lady  Mary 
Bertie’s  letters  alludes  to  a  wretched  watchman 
who  was  murdered  while  on  duty  by  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth  and  some  drunken  courtiers.  It  was  said 
that  the  culprits  would  be  brought  to  trial,  but  in 
the  end  justice  seems  to  have  been  satisfied  with  the 
postponement  of  a  great  ball  that  was  to  have  taken 
place  at  the  palace  that  night.  A  gang  of  about 
fifty  men,  called  “Whipping  Tom,”  prowled  about 
the  streets  under  cover  of  the  darkness,  and  seized 
and  flogged  any  women  that  they  could  find,  causing 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  171 


the  death  of  several  victims.  One  of  them  attacked 
a  maidservant,  who  resisted  lustily,  and  called  for 
help  until  a  constable  came  to  the  rescue.  The 
ruffian  proved  to  be  a  Holborn  haberdasher  ;  “  he 
was  just  upon  marrying  one  with  ^600,”  writes  Lady 
Mary  Bertie,  “  but  she  will  not  now  have  him.” 

The  scandals  of  the  day  are  generally  retailed  or 
mentioned  in  the  letters  from  Lady  Chaworth  and 
Lady  Mary.  Most  of  them  are  unfit  for  publication, 
and  would  scarcely  be  repeated  by  a  modern  sister 
to  her  brother,  or  even  by  an  aunt  to  her  married 
niece  ;  but  here  and  there  we  come  upon  an  amusing 
illustration  of  the  difference  between  the  manners 
of  high  society  under  the  later  Stuarts  and  under 
our  own  Sovereign.  Lady  Chaworth  tells  her  brother  : 
“  The  quarrels  of  some  ladies  hath  made  great  talk 
in  the  town  and  much  laughing.  Mistress  Baker 
first  began  with  a  bitter  letter  to  my  Lady  Anglesey, 
yet  concluded  ‘  a  lover  of  her  soul.’  This  highly 
incensed  the  lady,  and  Mistress  Baker  not  forbearing 
the  house  upon  it,  she  threw  some  things  at  her  to 
have  her  go  out  of  the  room.* 

“  The  other  two  ladies  is  Lady  Mohun  and  Mistress 
Brown,  the  dear  friends,  but  it  is  too  long  for  any 
letter ;  but  in  short  they  were  at  cards  at  one 
Mistress  Roberts’s  lodgings,  and  one  Mistress  Love 
being  landlady  of  the  house,  Lady  Mohun’s  page 

*  Lord  Anglesey’s  diary  records  that  his  wife  fell  into  “  a 
Bedlam  railing  humour”  with  him  over  a  pair  of  "pantaloons  ’’ 
intended  for  her  son. 


172 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


spit  in  that  Mistress  Love’s  daughter’s  face,  and  so 
the  mother  would  have  turned  him  out  of  the  house, 
but  he  ran  up  to  his  lady,  and  so  the  woman  followed 
him,  and  the  quarrel  began  between  her  and  the 
lady  with  ill  words  and  candlesticks.  And  so  the 
lady  petitioned  the  House  upon  breach  of  privilege, 
and  her  father  brought  it  in,  but  Mistress  Brown, 
Mistress  Roberts,  and  her  husband,  came  in  against 
Lady  Mohun,  and  made  her  the  provoker,  so  the 
House  of  Lords  threw  it  out,  and  left  them  to 
the  law,  and  she  says  they  have  foresworn  them¬ 
selves  in  favour  of  the  woman,  and  they  say  not. 
And  it  entertained  the  King  mightily  who  was  at 
the  House.” 

Well  might  Charles  swear  that  the  debates  in  the 
House  were  as  good  as  a  play.  A  candlestick  seems 
to  have  been  a  common  weapon  in  a  domestic  brawl. 
There  is  a  letter  written  by  Lady  Standish  to  Mr. 
Roger  Kenyon,  M.P.,  a  few  years  later,  which  com¬ 
plains  that  “  Lord  Willoughby  is  almost  as  great  a 
plague  to  me  as  he  is  to  his  wife  and  her  maids, 
for  my  Lord  fighting  with  my  Lady’s  woman,  she 
has  broke  his  shins  with  a  brass  candlestick,  and 
he  is  a  cripple.” 

Blows  were  not  infrequent,  even  with  the  very 
highest  in  the  land,  when  the  provocation  was  severe. 
Peregrine  Bertie,  vice-chamberlain  of  the  house¬ 
hold,  writes  to  his  cousin,  Lady  Rutland,  in  1686: 
“  Last  night  it  was  very  confidently  reported  that 
the  Oueen  and  my  Lady  Peterborough  were  fallen 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  173 


out,  and  that  the  Queen  had  given  her  a  box  of 
the  ear.” 

Duels  were  of  common  occurrence,  and  elope¬ 
ments  were  continually  taking  place.  One  lady 
“  went  out  as  to  a  play,”  and  took  that  opportunity 
of  escaping  to  a  house  “  where  the  minister,  the  ring, 
and  the  confidants  ”  were  ready,  after  which  she 
had  the  presence  of  mind  to  write  to  the  Bishop  of 
London  and  beg  him  to  make  her  excuses  to  her 
father.  The  injured  parent  “  sent  a  thundering 
command  for  her  to  come  home  that  night,”  which 
she  meekly  obeyed.  Apparently  she  had  been 
married  before,  for  mention  is  made  of  her  daughter 
and  her  property,  and  her  second  husband  was 
younger  than  herself.  The  end  of  the  story  is  not 
uncommon,  although  sad.  Eight  months  later  we 
are  told :  “  She  has  quickly  left  her  young  esquire 
a  widower  ;  and  ’tis  said  he  is  more  concerned  for 
her  death  than  he  seemed  to  be  for  her  life,  which 
will  make  some  believe  he  regrets  the  loss  of  the 
estate,  for  ’tis  certain  her  daughter  never  cried, 
though  ’tis  also  reported  they  took  what  care  possible 
by  forcing  her  [the  mother]  to  levy  a  fine  just 
as  she  was  dying.”  Another  heroine  made  an 
assignation  in  a  church  with  a  lover  whose  visits 
her  family  did  not  permit  her  to  receive  ;  she  kept 
her  appointment,  but,  “  making  some  pretence  to 
go  to  the  door,  she  locked  him  in  all  night.” 

Perhaps  it  is  not  wonderful  that  the  Morocco 
ambassador  conceived  a  horror  of  the  manners  of 


i74 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


the  English  ladies.  He  was  one  of  the  lions  of  a 
season,  dividing  public  attention  with  the  Russian 
ambassador,  who  made  his  entry  into  London  in 
November,  1681,  “with  a  lamentable  attendance 
of  lousy  fellows.”  The  Tsar’s  envoy  came  to 
announce  the  marriage  of  Feodor  III.  with  a  lady 
who  had  died  two  years  before  he  arrived  in 
England.  The  long  beards  worn  by  him  and  all 
his  retinue  made  a  great  impression  on  the  smooth- 
chinned  English,  who  had  been  accustomed  to  regard 
General  Dalziell  as  a  monster.  The  only  one  with 
a  short  beard  was  the  ambassador’s  son,  who  had 
been  shaved  in  France  while  he  was  unconscious 
after  a  drinking-bout,  and  expected  to  lose  his  head 
as  a  penalty  on  his  return  home.  A  Russian  skull 
is  still  said  to  be  able  to  bear  anything  in  the  way 
of  strong  drink,  so  the  French  must  have  found  it 
difficult  to  intoxicate  their  guest  ;  the  ambassador 
himself  thought  nothing  of  a  pint  of  brandy  with  a 
spoonful  of  white  pepper  at  one  draught.  When  in 
private  he  sat  in  his  nightgown,  all  his  fine  garments 
being  borrowed  from  the  Tsar’s  wardrobe  for  the 
occasion,  under  pain  of  severe  punishment  if  they 
were  lost  or  spoiled.  King  Charles  made  him  an 
allowance  of  £10  a  day  during  his  visit,  with  which, 
as  it  was  paid  in  new  money,  the  barbarian  was 
delighted,  and  he  starved  his  household  in  order  to 
keep  it  to  himself.  Lady  Anne  Howe,  who  wrote 
all  these  particulars  to  Lady  Rutland,  was  very 
anxious  to  obtain  a  sight  of  him  before  his  potations 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  175 


had  killed  him  :  “  I  have  seen  but  one  play  since  I 
came  [to  town],  but  I  must  go  to  see  him  ;  sure 
he  cannot  live  long.” 

#  * 

* 

Frequent  mention  is  made  in  the  letters  addressed 
to  Lady  Rutland  by  the  different  members  of  her 
family,  of  her  sister  and  correspondent,  Bridget 
Noel.  One  is  apt  to  imagine  that  unmarried 
daughters  in  those  days  were  “  sair  hadden  doun  ”  ; 
and  that  even  the  married  ones  did  not  escape 
lightly  is  shown  by  the  private  diary  of  the  Earl 
of  Anglesey  (husband  of  the  lady  who  gave  Mistress 
Baker  such  strong  hints  to  discontinue  her  visits). 
He  was  a  gentleman  of  grave  deportment,  who 
served  Charles  II.  faithfully  in  various  high  offices  ; 
and  he  records  prayers,  meditations,  and  constant 
attendances  at  church,  with  such  pious  aspirations 
as  “  God’s  providence  be  magnified,”  “  The  Lord 
sanctify  the  rest  of  my  days  to  His  glory,”  and  so 
forth.  Nevertheless,  in  the  course  of  a  disagreement 
with  his  daughter,  Lady  Mohun,  he  called  her 
“  impudent  baggage,”  and  made  use  of  other  terms 
with  which  it  is  to  be  supposed  his  Biblical  studies 
had  made  him  acquainted,  and  concludes  his  account 
of  the  quarrel,  “  if  she  had  not  been  married  I  had 
beat  her,”  which  looks  as  if  a  wife  were  privileged 
to  receive  correction  only  from  her  husband. 

Bridget  Noel’s  parents  were  of  a  gentler  nature, 
and  the  record  of  her  amusements  and  occupations 


176 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


could  hardly  be  equalled  by  the  most  emancipated 
young  woman  who  flourishes  her  latchkey  in  the 
face  of  the  public.  Card-playing  was  the  fashion¬ 
able  diversion  in  the  later  years  of  Charles  II.’s  reign, 
quite  superseding  the  dancing  in  which  his  queen 
had  delighted.  “  I  never  knew  so  undancing  a  winter 
as  this,”  grumbles  Mr.  Edward  Bedingfield  to  Lady 
Rutland  on  New  Year’s  Day,  1685.  “Play  is 
grown  the  predominate  passion  even  of  the  ladies 
[who]  as  well  as  men  prefer  it  to  all  diversions. 
Comette  now  reigns,  though  Bassett  still  keeps  in 
credit.”  Bridget  played  with  her  friends  at  basset, 
ombre,  gleek,  “  whisk,”  and  sometimes  hazarded  a 
few  casts  at  dice.  From  a  postscript  to  one  of  her 
letters  it  appears  that  she  was  furnished  with  money 
for  gambling  by  Lady  Rutland,  who  paid  her  losses 
and  pocketed  her  winnings.  Lady  Rutland  must 
have  found  this  expensive,  as  Bridget  once  confesses, 
“  The  last  time  ...  we  lost  ^40.”  She  betted  freely, 
wagering  ten  guineas  at  a  time  with  “  my  Lady 
Exeter.”  In  horse-racing  she  took  a  keen  interest, 
and  was  quite  proud  of  a  report  that  she  had  lost 
^1,000  on  “the  mare’s  match.”  Whether  Lady 
Rutland  were  as  pleased  (if  the  rumour  ever  reached 
Bclvoir)  is  nowhere  stated. 

So  far  Bridget’s  tastes  were  only  those  of  an 
advanced  young  lady  of  the  twentieth  century ; 
but  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  one  of  her  favourite 
pastimes  would  be  revolting  to  modern  womanhood. 
We  find  her  writing  to  apologise  for  postponing 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  177 


a  visit  to  Belvoir,  as  she  is  engaged  to  attend  “a 
great  cocking  ”  (cock-fight),  which  is  to  be  “as  great 
a  match  as  ever  has  been.”  A  certain  “Barney” 
has  promised  “  to  back  our  cocks  with  some  thou¬ 
sands,  for  he  is  of  our  side.” 

When  gambling  and  races  began  to  pall  upon  her, 
Bridget  Noel  found  a  new  excitement  in  speculation. 
She  became  part  owner,  with  Lady  Rutland,  of  a 
“  grove  ”  ( i.e .  pit),  and  sat  pensive  among  a  roomful 
of  company,  thinking  of  her  “  grove  ”  instead  of 
playing  cards.  A  sensible  friend  writes  drily  to 
her  sister,  “  I  wish  your  Ladyship  and  Lady  Bridget 
good  event  in  your  grove  ;  I  fancy  two  such  miners 
are  not  common  in  Derbyshire.”  Among  her  friends 
Bridget  was  frequently  accorded  a  courtesy  title  ; 
but  the  earldom  which  her  father  and  mother  were 
always  expecting,  and  for  which  Lord  Campden  was 
so  foolish  as  to  pay  £4,000,  contrary  to  his  wife’s 
advice,  was  not  bestowed  until  her  brother  had 
succeeded  to  the  property. 

She  was  evidently  as  much  interested  in  dress 
as  Lady  Rutland’s  other  correspondents,  and  her 
letters  give  minute  details  of  purchases  made  at 
the  London  shops.  After  buying  “  a  black  manto  ” 
of  a  waved  silk,  black  velvet  bodice  and  black 
petticoat  with  black  fringes,  it  was  somewhat 
annoying  to  find  that  coloured  petticoats  were  the 
right  thing  to  wear.  Petticoats  seem  to  have 
caused  much  anxiety  at  that  time.  Bridget’s  friends 
in  the  country  wrote  to  ask  how  they  should  be 


12 


i78 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


made,  and  she  was  unable  to  satisfy  them.  “  I 
cannot  give  you  an  account,  for  I  am  told  the  lace 
is  not  used,  and  indeed  I  have  not  seen  any  petticoats 
but  what  has  been  ermine,  and  made  up  just  like 
your  own  ermine  petticoat.”  Fringes  were  de  rigueur, 
some  petticoats  having  as  many  as  nine  rows  of 
fringe  set  “  not  straight  but  in  waves,”  which  in 
Bridget’s  opinion  did  not  look  well.  When  not 
describing  her  own  costumes,  she  is  ready  to  offer 
criticisms  on  those  worn  by  “  my  sister  Gains¬ 
borough,”  whose  taste  in  dress  left  much  to  be 
desired.  Writing  to  Lady  Rutland  on  a  Saturday 
after  a  visit  to  Exton,  Bridget  says,  “  To-morrow 
is  Sunday,  and  I  intend  to  go  to  church,  so  that  I 
have  not  much  time  to  send  you  word  of  any 
fashions,”  but  she  manages  to  find  leisure  to  report 
that  “  my  sister  Gainsborough  was  in  her  frightful  red 
manto  and  petticoat,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  ladies 
very  fine.”  A  few  days  later  she  goes  to  see  Lady 
Exeter  at  Burleigh,  and  again  encounters  her  sister 
“  in  such  a  dress  as  I  never  saw,  without  dispute. 
Her  jengan  [?]  manto  is  the  worst  of  the  kind,  it 
is  purple,  and  a  great  deal  of  green,  and  a  little 
gold,  and  great  flowers  ;  there  is  some  red  with  the 
green,  and  no  lining,  which  looks  most  abominable.” 

Bridget  was  a  constant  attendant  at  the  theatre 
whenever  she  had  an  opportunity.  While  she  was 
the  guest  of  Sir  Thomas  and  Lady  Fanshaw  at 
Jenkins,  in  Essex,  she  frequently  drove  up  to  town 
to  visit  the  shops  and  see  a  play,  returning  the  same 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  179 


night.  The  roads  from  Jenkins  to  London  were 
very  good,  and  she  did  not  meet  with  such  ill 
adventures  as  befell  the  Duchess  of  York  (Maria 
Beatrice)  in  driving  back  from  “  Lord  Buckingham’s 
near  Windsor,”  when  the  servants  were  so  drunk 
that  they  overturned  the  coach  with  her  royal 
highness,  injuring  her  nose  and  the  faces  of  the 
two  ladies  in  attendance  upon  her. 

One  of  Bridget’s  expeditions  was  to  “  the  great 
fortune-teller,  Madame  La  Croy.”  One  would  like 
to  know  how  this  lady  professed  to  see  into  the 
future  for  her  clients.  Did  she  employ  the  common 
method  of  looking  at  the  lines  on  the  hand,  or  did 
she  consult  the  magic  crystal,  which  was  then,  as 
now,  a  favourite  instrument  with  those  who  wished 
to  tamper  with  occult  powers  ?  A  curious  letter 
preserved  in  another  volume  of  the  Reports  of  the 
Historical  Manuscripts  Commission,  and  dated  1666, 
gives  Mrs.  Anne  Savile’s  description  of  what  she  saw 
in  a  crystal  ball.  She  speaks  of  “  shapes  of  men 
and  women,”  “  a  beauteous  sky  studded  with  stars 
and  planets,”  and  other  things,  but  has  the  sense  to 
quote  against  herself  the  proverb,  “  As  the  fool 
thinketh,  so  the  bell  ringeth.”  The  chief  impres¬ 
sion  left  on  the  mind  of  Bridget  Noel  by  her  inter¬ 
view  with  the  seer  was  one  of  pleasure,  as  Madame 
La  Croy  foretold  that  she  would  never  have  the 
small-pox. 

After  making  these  excursions  three  or  four  times 
a  week,  even  Bridget’s  superabundant  vitality  was 


1B0  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

exhausted,  and  she  was  forced  to  lie  in  bed  all  the 
next  day.  Her  sister-in-law,  Susanna  Noel,  who 
was  also  paying  a  visit  at  Jenkins,  complained  that 
for  three  nights  in  succession  she  had  not  been 
allowed  three  hours’  sleep  ;  and  Uncle  Charles  Bertie, 
who  kindly  went  down  to  call  upon  his  nieces,  was 
made  to  stay  and  play  cards  till  eight  o’clock  in 
the  morning,  and  returned  to  London  “  scarcely  able 
to  hold  up  his  eyes.”  He  evidently  thought  this 
dissipation  carried  too  far,  and  gives  vent  to  the 
wish  that  “  we  could  prevail  with  Lady  Bridget  to 
hearken  to  any  fair  proposals  of  marriage.  I  cannot 
say,”  he  adds,  “  I  find  any  great  inclination  in  her 
to  change  her  condition  upon  equal  terms.” 

The  letters  of  the  Verney  family,  now  become  a 
classic  to  rank  with  those  of  the  Pastons,  show  how 
small  a  share  was  played  by  love  in  the  marriages 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  If  further  proof  were 
needed,  the  extremely  cold-blooded  letter  of  Sir 
Robert  Harley,  already  quoted,*  reflects  the  tone  of 
the  age.  A  marriage  was  a  bargain  between  the 
relations  on  either  side ;  the  offers  were  taken  into 
consideration  with  the  same  absence  of  sentiment 
that  would  have  characterised  the  haggling  over  the 
sale  of  a  horse  or  a  cow,  and  the  highest  bidder 
generally  carried  off  the  prize.  It  is  wonderful  that 
these  arranged  marriages,  in  which,  by  open  consent, 
only  the  lowest  motives  had  any  influence,  turned 
out  as  well  as  they  did,  and  that  we  have  so  many 
*  See  Chapter  II. 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  181 


instances  of  faithful  husbands  and  devoted  wives 
living  in  perfect  harmony  with  their  families  around 
them.  The  position  must  have  been  sufficiently 
difficult  when  both  parties  had  reached  years  of 
discretion,  and  the  child-marriages  so  fashionable 
under  Charles  II.  could  scarcely  end  otherwise  than 
miserably. 

There  are  frequent  allusions  by  Lady  Rutland’s 
friends  to  the  tragic  story  of  La  Triste  Hcritiere, 
the  heiress  of  the  Percies,  bought  at  ten  years 
old  by  the  Duke  of  Newcastle’s  son,  Lord  Ogle, 
widowed,  and  married  again  at  thirteen  to  “Tom 
o’  Ten  Thousand  ” — Thomas  Thynne,  of  Longleat, 
the  richest  commoner  in  England — from  whom  she 
fled  with  her  grandmother  to  the  Continent,  until 
Count  Konigsmarck’s  hired  bravoes  once  more 
widowed  her.*  Almost  equally  sad  was  the  story  of 
Anne  Scott,  the  heiress  of  Buccleuch,  the  tiniest 
lady  of  Charles’s  Court,  whom  he  gave  to  his 
worthless  son,  James,  Duke  of  Monmouth.  No  one 
saw  any  harm  in  these  marriages  ;  even  the  pious 
Lord  Anglesey  noted  in  his  diary  with  great 
satisfaction  :  “  This  morning  about  ten  of  the  clock 
at  Lambeth,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  married 
my  grandson,  John  Power,  not  eight  year  old,  to 
Mrs.  Katherine  Fitzgerald,  his  cousin-german,  about 

*  She  survived  all  her  troubles  to  marry  the  “  Proud  Duke 
of  Somerset,”  and  by  his  own  account  never  took  the  liberty 
of  embracing  him.  Her  carroty  hair  was  celebrated  by  Swift  in 
his  Windsor  Prophecy 


182 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


thirteen  years  of  age.  I  gave  her  in  the  chapel 
there,  and  they  answered  as  well  as  those  of 
greater  age.” 

Where  bridegroom  and  bride  were  past  childhood 
and  some  attention  was  paid  to  disposition,  educa¬ 
tion,  and  other  matters,  it  is  possible  that  they  were 
at  least  as  happy  with  a  judiciously  selected  partner 
of  their  elders’  choosing  and  full  license  to  do  their 
courting  after  marriage,  as  their  descendants  prove, 
whose  hearts  are  “  slowly  stewed  to  rags  over  the 
flames  of  a  consuming  passion.”  But  in  mitiga¬ 
tion  of  the  domestic  scandals  which  form  such  a 
prominent  part  of  memoirs  of  the  time,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  neither 
of  the  principals  had  been  allowed  much  voice  in 
settling  the  most  important  business  of  their  lives. 

Bridget  Noel  was  for  sale,  like  all  her  con¬ 
temporaries,  and  her  relations  had  much  trouble 
and  anxiety  on  her  account.  Her  prospects  were 
spoiled,  in  her  mother’s  opinion,  by  the  attentions  of 
Mr.  Chaloner  Chute,  of  the  Vyne,  whose  “hankering 
about  her  ”  was  supposed  to  hinder  “  all  good 
matches  thinking  of  her.”  The  report  was  general 
in  London  that  he  intended  marrying  her,  to  the 
great  wrath  of  Lady  Campden,  whose  kind  friends 
took  care  to  inform  her  of  it.  Mr.  Chute  kept  up 
a  correspondence  with  Lady  Rutland,  “  and  the  fool 
brags  of  it,”  writes  the  indignant  Lady  Campden, 
“  and  nobody  now  thinks  of  Bridget.” 

It  is  not  clear  why  Mr.  Chute’s  attentions  were  not 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  183 


approved  by  all  his  lady’s  family.  According  to  Lady 
Campden,  Bridget  herself  discouraged  his  suit,  but 
it  cannot  be  doubted  that  her  individual  preferences 
would  have  gone  for  nothing  had  her  parents  de¬ 
sired  him  as  a  son-in-law.  Whether  Lady  Rutland 
favoured  him  does  not  appear.  She  once  wrote  to 
warn  her  mother  that  Mr.  Chute  was  expected  at 
Belvoir,  where  Bridget  was  her  sister’s  guest ;  to 
which  Lady  Campden  replied  that  it  was  unnecessary 
to  take  any  special  precautions  to  prevent  the  two 
from  meeting.  “  My  Lord  does  not  suspect  her,  and 
leaves  her  to  her  own  decision,  and  if  she  should 
keep  up  in  her  chamber  my  Lord  thinks  it  would 
be  worse  ;  it  would  look  as  if  one  feared  her  for  him — 
that  we  was  afraid  of  her.”  A  little  later  we  find 
Mr.  Chute  writing  in  most  affectionate  terms  to 
Lady  Rutland  from  “the  French  camp  at  Leffenes.” 
Perhaps  he  thought  that  military  service  might  be 
the  surest  way  of  winning  his  lady’s  heart ;  but  it 
was  as  unavailing  as  the  long  account  of  Monmouth’s 
execution  which  he  sent,  ostensibly  to  amuse  Lady 
Rutland,  in  the  following  year.  Whether  by  her 
own  determination  or  in  obedience  to  her  family, 
Bridget  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him. 

The  unfailing  good-nature  of  Charles  Bertie  and 
his  position  at  Court  made  him  Lady  Campden’s 
chief  ally  in  her  pursuit  of  a  husband  for  her 
daughter,  and  he  entered  upon  the  quest  with 
hearty  good  will.  His  reports  on  the  state  of  the 
matrimonial  market  are  amusing  to  read.  To  Lady 


1 84  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

Campden’s  grief,  her  daughters’  portions  could  not 
be  more  than  £10,000  apiece.  There  was  at  one 
time  a  hope  of  securing  Lord  Conway  for  Bridget, 
but  Sir  John  Stowell  interposed  with  an  offer  of 
his  daughter’s  hand  :  Mistress  Stowell  was  “engaged 
to  be  made  worth  thirty  thousand  pound,”  so 
“  Bridget  with  her  ten  thousand  pound  will  not  be 
heard  of,”  wrote  the  despairing  mother  to  Charles 
Bertie.  The  uncle  responded  with  a  lamentation 
over  the  hardness  of  the  times  :  “  Husbands  are 
very  bad,  and  scarce  any  good  ones,  which  troubles 
me  extremely  upon  Lady  Bridget’s  account.  Un¬ 
grateful  and  vile  age  !  ” 

Lady  Campden  consoled  herself  with  the  reflection 
that  even  heiresses  could  not  have  it  all  their  own 
way,  as  “  Lady  Ogle’s  great  fortune  brought  her  to 
a  great  deal  of  ill  fortune.”  Then  Charles  Bertie 
had  a  proposal  to  make :  “  What  think  you  of  my 
Lord  Marquis  of  Worcester’s  son  for  my  niece 
Bridget  ?  All  things  are  possible,  if  you  can  open 
your  purse  strings  and  have  no  exception  to  his 
shape,  whose  mind  richly  supplies  all  those  defects.” 

Either  the  purse-strings  could  not  be  sufficiently 
loosened  or  the  physical  defects  of  the  suitor  were 
more  than  Lady  Campden  could  excuse,  for  we  hear 
no  more  of  him  until  she  reports  to  her  husband 
that‘“  My  Lord  Marquis  Worcester’s  son  is  to  marry 
Sir  Jonathan  Child’s  daughter,  and  twenty  thousand 
pound.”  Lord  Banbury  is  the  next  eligible  suitor 
whose  name  is  coupled  by  rumour  with  that  of 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  185 


Bridget,  but  it  does  not  appear  whether  his  suit 
had  any  existence  save  in  the  imagination  of 
Northamptonshire  gossips.  Charles  Bertie  wrote 
that  he  wished  his  niece  well  married,  but  that  “  men 
look  now  to  be  courted  as  women  used  to  formerly.” 

Poor  Lady  Campden  was  nearly  at  her  wits’  end. 
Besides  Bridget,  there  was  another  daughter,  “  Pen,” 
to  be  settled  in  life,  and  a  son,  Baptist,  who  generally 
figures  in  the  correspondence  as  “  Bab.”  At  least 
his  wayward  affections  gave  her  little  trouble,  as, 
when  there  was  some  question  of  his  marriage,  she 
wrote  to  Lady  Rutland,  “  Bab  will  never  break  his 
heart  with  being  in  love.”  His  future  was  more 
easily  settled  than  that  of  his  sisters,  and  when  he 
found  a  wife  his  mother  wrote  triumphantly,  “  Now 
many  are  sorry  Bab  is  engaged,”  though  she  was 
obliged  to  confess  that  “  Few  men  here  (in  London), 
do  think  of  marrying,”  and  that  she  could  not  hear 
of  any  match  for  Bridget  or  Pen.  One  Sir  George 
Dowing  had  offered  his  son  for  Pen,  and  made  so 
sure  of  success  as  to  call  to  arrange  the  matter  with 
Peregrine  Bertie,  who,  having  heard  nothing  of  it 
from  the  lady’s  family,  gave  him  no  satisfaction. 
The  terms  he  proposed  seemed  quite  inadequate 
to  Lady  Campden,  who  wrote  to  Lady  Rutland, 
“  None  need  to  give  him  encouragement  where  ten 
thousand  ready  portion  is.” 

So  hard  to  be  found  were  husbands  that  at 
this  time  three  ladies  scandalised  Society  by 
their  marriages  — Lady  Katherine  Vane  to  a  page 


i86 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


attending  on  her  sister ;  Lady  Exeter,  Sir  John 
Churchill’s  daughter,  to  the  Savoy  ambassador’s 
servant;  and  “Lady  Newburgh”  to  her  own 
steward. 

While  in  the  midst  of  her  negotiations,  Lady 
Campden  died.  She  left  ,£4,000  to  each  of  her  two 
unmarried  daughters,  of  whom  Bridget  was  one, 
and  a  larger  sum  to  Lady  Rutland.  Thus  left  with¬ 
out  a  mother’s  help,  Bridget’s  chance  of  getting  a 
husband  was  considerably  diminished,  and  there  is 
a  slightly  acrid  tone  about  her  allusions  to  other 
marriageable  ladies  who  were  better  dowered.  “  I 
am  very  sorry  for  poor  Mistress  Hatton’s  having 
the  small-pox,  but  I  hope  she  will  escape  with  her 
life,  and  then  it  is  no  matter  if  her  face  is  a  little 
disfigured,  being  [sic]  her  father  is  able  to  make  an 
addition  to  her  portion.”  Mistress  Hatton  survived 
to  marry  Lord  Nottingham,  and  her  father  was 
reported  to  be  ready  to  give  her  ,£12,000,  which, 
in  Bridget’s  opinion,  was  a  high  price  to  pay  for  a 
bridegroom  who  had  already  a  son  and  a  daughter 
by  his  first  wife.  When  it  came  to  the  point,  it  was 
found  that  her  dowry  was  no  more  than  £  1,000, 
which  must  have  been  a  trying  discovery  for  poor 
Bridget. 

One  would  fain  know  more  of  Bridget’s  story, 
but  she  drops  out  of  the  correspondence.  There  is 
a  characteristic  letter  from  her  in  the  June  of  1688 
telling  various  items  of  gossip,  and  concluding  with 
the  information  that  she  is  having  her  likeness  taken 


A  GROUP  FROM  THE  RESTORATION.  187 


by  “  the  man  that  does  the  pictures  in  enamel.”  “  I 
wish  the  man  does  not  get  this  new  distemper,  and 
die  before  he  comes  again.”  After  this  there  is 
no  more  from  her,  except  a  little  note  on  business 
matters  to  her  nephew’s  wife,  Lady  Roos,  dated  1702. 
The  editorial  preface  to  the  second  volume  of  the 
Belvoir  MSS.  tells  us  coldly  that  Bridget  Noel 
remained  unmarried  to  the  end  of  her  life.  Her 
name  disappears  from  the  letters  of  her  family 
after  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  and  we 
do  not  know  how  she  spent  her  time.  There  is  a 
curious  passage  in  a  letter  written  in  1692  by  Lady 
Margaret  Russell  to  her  niece  Katherine  Russell 
(daughter  of  Rachel,  Lady  Russell),  who  became  the 
wife  of  young  Lord  Roos  in  the  following  year. 
“  I  was  yesterday  to  see  Lady  Katherine  Leveson  ” 
(the  Earl  of  Rutland’s  daughter,  just  married  to  Sir 
John  Leveson)  “in  compliment  to  you;  who  is  a 
pretty  woman,  but  a  little  too  like  her  aunt  Bridget.” 
Was  it  of  Bridget’s  face  or  of  her  character  that 
Lady  Margaret  disapproved  ? 

Lady  Chaworth  makes  her  last  appearance  re¬ 
ceiving  a  visit  from  Lady  Russell  and  “  my  dear 
Lord  Roos,  his  mistress,”  and  writing  to  tell  her 
brother  how  fortunate  he  seemed  to  be  in  his  future 
daughter-in-law. 

Charles  and  Peregrine  Bertie  continued  to  take 
the  same  affectionate  interest  in  all  connected  with 
Lady  Rutland’s  family  as  long  as  they  were  alive. 
Peregrine  lived  to  see  Lord  Rutland  created  a 


1 88  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

duke  (an  honour  which  the  earl  owed  in  great 
measure  to  the  solicitations  on  his  behalf  of  that 
most  importunate  widow,  Lady  Russell),  and  survived 
him  less  than  six  months.  “  The  poor  Vice,”  writes 
John  Charlton  in  July,  1711,  “who  was  as  well  as 
ever  playing  at  White’s  at  ten  o’clock  last  Monday 
night,  fell  into  an  apoplexy,  never  spoke  one  word, 
but  lived  till  seven  the  next  evening.” 

Many  of  the  letters  written  to  Lord  and  Lady 
Rutland  during  the  reigns  of  William  and  Mary  and 
Anne  are  fully  as  interesting  as  those  which  have 
been  already  quoted.  But  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
include  them  within  this  selection.  They  introduce 
a  new  set  of  characters — new  friends  and  new  con¬ 
nections  at  Belvoir,  and  entirely  different  scenes  and 
personages  at  Whitehall.  When  the  orange  usurped 
the  place  where  the  white  rose  should  have  bloomed, 
a  change  came  over  all  things,  not  so  dire  as  that 
which  was  wrought  when  the  wind  blew  “  a  wee 
German  lairdie  ”  from  his  beloved  Hanover  to  rule 
one  of  the  greatest  nations  in  Europe,  but  still 
sufficiently  marked  almost  to  constitute  a  new 
epoch. 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


Thomas  Pitt 
( d \  1726). 

Jane  Innes  (Mrs.  Pitt) 
{d.  1727). 


V. 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 

CLOSE  study  of  the  history  of  any  family 


generally  enables  us  to  place  it  in  one  of 
three  classes.  In  the  first  division  are  the  few  who, 
owing  to  fortunate  circumstances  and  exceptionally 
sweet  dispositions,  quarrel  neither  with  the  world 
nor  among  themselves ;  in  the  second,  those  who, 
quarrelling  among  themselves,  manage  to  keep  on 
good  terms  with  their  acquaintance  ;  and  in  the 
third,  those  whose  relations  with  outsiders  or  with 
each  other  are  accompanied  by  an  incessant  jangle 
of  dispute  and  invective.  To  the  last  belonged  the 
family  which  has  given  to  England  two  of  her 
greatest  statesmen.  Gifted  in  their  various  ways  as 
were  nearly  all  who  bore  the  name  of  Pitt,  they 
seem  to  have  been  as  quarrelsome  and  turbulent 
as  can  well  be  imagined.  Much  of  their  ill-temper 
was  doubtless  caused  by  the  hereditary  gout  from 
which  all  suffered,  and  which,  so  far  as  can  be 
traced,  was  a  legacy  from  the  first  member  of  the 
family  who  comes  prominently  before  our  notice, 
Thomas  Pitt,  Governor  of  Fort  St.  George,  in 
Madras,  for  the  East  India  Company. 


192 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


His  picture  still  hangs  at  Chevening,  and  shows 
a  corpulent  elderly  gentleman  in  a  curled  wig, 
embroidered  waistcoat,  and  long  coat  reaching  half¬ 
way  down  to  his  heels.  The  lines  about  mouth 
and  brow  indicate  an  irascible  and  violent  temper, 
and  the  lower  part  of  the  face  is  heavy  and  fleshy ; 
but  there  is  a  great  suggestion  of  intellectual  power 
in  the  massive  forehead,  and  much  shrewdness  and 
penetration  in  the  gaze  of  those  keen  eyes  under 
their  heavy  eyebrows.  Hot-tempered,  overbearing, 
but  not  unworthy  of  love  or  respect — so  he  seems 
from  his  likeness  and  by  the  letters  written  by 
him  in  a  bold  large  hand,  with  a  fine  indifference 
to  correct  spelling  and  the  proper  uses  of  capital 
letters. 

In  the  same  place  is  the  portrait  of  his  wife, 
Jane,  daughter  of  James  Innes,  of  Reid  Hall,  Moray. 
Sitting  beside  a  table,  holding  a  flower  in  one  hand, 
her  hair  dishevelled  and  flowing  over  her  shoulders, 
her  appearance  is  not  attractive.  She  looks  as  if 
she  had  been  too  much  bored  to  complete  her 
toilette,  and  the  somewhat  coarsely  moulded  nose 
and  lips  seem  to  show  ill-temper  and  discontent. 
If  she  were  not  in  the  best  humour  with  her  sur¬ 
roundings  it  would  not  be  wonderful,  seeing  how 
uncomfortable  was  her  married  life.  Undoubtedly 
there1  were  faults  on  both  sides  ;  if  she  was  peevish 
and  neglectful,  the  governor  was  unreasonable  and 
violent.  In  common  justice,  one  is  bound  to  find 
what  excuses  there  may  be  for  her,  as  her  letters 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


i93 


have  not  been  preserved,  and  she  has  no  opportunity 
of  speaking  in  her  own  defence.  The  governor 
is  always  ready  to  air  his  grievances  to  his 
correspondents,  and,  as  every  one  of  his  kin 
and  acquaintance — wife,  sons,  daughters,  cousins, 
official  superiors,  servants,  clergy,  and  Members 
of  Parliament — come  in  by  turn  for  a  share  of 
his  vituperations,  it  is  only  fair  to  conclude  that 
Mrs.  Pitt  cannot  always  have  been  as  much  to 
blame  as  her  husband  imagined. 

Thomas  Pitt  and  Jane  Innes  were  married  in 
1678.  He  was  the  second  son  of  the  Reverend 
John  Pitt,  Rector  of  Blandford  St.  Mary,  Dorset, 
and  is  said  to  have  been  “  bred  to  the  sea  ” — of 
which  last  fact  the  style  and  diction  of  some  of 
his  letters  would  almost  be  proof  in  itself.  His 
early  career  was  at  one  time  a  mystery,  but  the 
investigations  of  Colonel  Sir  Henry  Yule  have 
shown  that  the  despotic  Governor  of  Fort  St.  George 
was  identical  with  “  Pyrott  Pitts,”  “  an  interloper  in 
the  Bay,”  “  a  fellow  of  a  haughty,  ruffling,  daring 
temper,”  who  successfully  engaged  in  contraband 
trade  and  defied  the  East  India  Company  in  the 
latter  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  Company  had  an  exclusive  right  to  trade 
in  Madras,  and  warned  off  all  other  adventurers 
who  dared  to  enter  the  bay.  But  Pirate  Pitt,  in 
his  little  vessel  the  Crown,  could  make  the  run  in 
less  time  than  any  of  their  ships,  and  as  his  goods 
were  newer  and  fresher,  he  drove  a  thriving  trade. 

13 


194 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


He  had  various  partners  in  his  illicit  business,  one 
of  them  being  his  cousin,  John  Pitt,  of  whom  more 
will  have  to  be  said  by-and-by.  The  Company 
raged,  threatened,  abused,  and  all  in  vain.  In  one 
of  his  expeditions  he  was  actually  made  prisoner  by 
their  officials,  and  released  only  on  giving  a  security 
of  £40,000 ;  but,  once  set  free,  he  returned  to  his 
former  courses.  At  last,  in  1684,  the  East  India 
Company’s  Court  in  England  brought  an  action 
against  him,  which  was  decided  in  their  favour  by 
Judge  Jeffries.  Pitt  was  condemned  to  pay  a  fine 
of  £1,000,  and  it  may  have  been  supposed  that  he 
would  turn  his  mind  to  some  other  way  of  making 
a  fortune. 

A  few  years  later  we  find  that  Pitt,  with  £600 
of  his  fine  remitted,  is  admitted  to  the  freedom  of 
the  Company,  and  on  the  strength  of  this  is  once 
again  “interloping”  in  the  bay.  Recognising  the 
hopelessness  of  the  situation,  the  Company  con¬ 
descended  to  make  terms  with  him,  and  with  rare 
wisdom  decided  to  use  his  shrewdness  and  enterprise 
for  their  own  advantage.  In  1698  the  Court  in 
London  are  writing  a  letter  to  the  Council  at  Fort 
St.  George  concerning  “  the  defeating  of  Interlopers, 
wherein  we  think  our  President’s  advice  may  be 
helpful  to  you,  he  having  engaged  to  Us  to  signalize 
himself  therein.”  In  accordance  with  the  maxim 
“  Set  a  thief  to  catch  a  thief,”  Pirate  Pitt  had  been 
made  President  of  Fort  St.  George. 

The  story  is  extraordinary,  but  Sir  Henry  Yule 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


i95 


has  established  it  beyond  the  possibility  of  disbelief. 
The  Company  were  justified  in  their  choice,  for 
most  of  their  subsequent  prosperity  was  due  to  the 
action  of  the  new  governor. 

Pitt  had  already  made  his  own  fortune,  or  a  con¬ 
siderable  part  of  it,  in  the  privateering  ventures  which 
he  now  abandoned,  and  had  been  able  to  buy  the 
manor  of  Stratford-under-the-Castle,  in  Wiltshire 
(Old  Sarum),  where  he  left  his  wife  and  children 
when  he  returned  to  India.  He  had  sat  in  Parlia¬ 
ment  as  Member  for  Salisbury,  and  then  as  Member 
for  Old  Sarum.  A  landed  proprietor  and  an  M.P. 
was  a  very  different  thing  from  the  obscure 
adventurer  who  had  been  arrested  by  order  of  the 
council ;  and  the  new  president,  who  had  a  sense 
of  humour,  must  have  chuckled  to  himself  over  the 
change  in  his  position  when  he  took  his  seat  at  the 
head  of  the  Board  for  the  first  time.  Whether  he 
exulted  aloud  over  his  colleagues  is  not  stated,  but 
we  are  told  that  his  first  proceeding  was  to  give 
a  treat  to  the  servants  and  freemen  of  the  Company 
in  honour  of  his  accession. 

By  a  curious  fate,  Pitt’s  cousin  and  old  ally,  John 
Pitt,  was  now  at  Masulipatam  in  the  service  of  the 
New  East  India  Company,  generally  known  as 
the  “  English  ”  Company,  founded  under  a  charter 
of  William  III.  in  1690.  Between  the  servants  of 
the  Old  Company  and  the  servants  of  the  New  there 
could  be  nothing  but  strife,  more  especially  as  the 
officers  of  the  New  Company  had  obtained  the  right 


196 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


to  call  themselves  British  consuls.  No  one  in 
Madras,  according  to  the  Old  Company,  paid  much 
heed  to  them  or  to  their  authority  ;  but  the  additional 
importance  thus  given  to  a  set  of  upstarts  was 
galling  to  Pitt  and  the  members  of  his  council.  John 
Pitt  at  first  wrote  frequently  to  his  cousin  in  a 
strain  of  polite  cordiality  which  had  no  effect  upon 
the  governor,  whose  replies  to  these  “  sugar-candy 
letters,”  as  he  calls  them,  do  not  err  on  the  side 
of  sweetness.  Finding  his  advances  discouraged, 
and  annoyed  by  the  continual  friction  between  the 
agents  of  the  rival  companies,  John  Pitt  now  changed 
his  tone  and  tried  to  emulate  the  governor’s  diction. 
At  this  the  Governor  and  Council  of  Fort  St.  George 
conceived  themselves  mortally  affronted,  and  they 
wrote  to  complain  of  receiving  from  the  consul  “a 
letter  wherein  were  sundry  expressions  as  if  it  had 
been  dictated  to  him  by  the  oyster  wenches  at 
Billingsgate.”  After  incessant  disputes  to  the  injury 
of  both  sides,  the  companies  were  united  under  a 
common  board  of  managers  in  1702  ;  but  the  quarrels 
between  the  members  continued  as  heartily  as  ever, 
and  were  the  ultimate  cause  of  Pitt’s  retirement 
some  years  later. 

The  lives  of  the  early  settlers  in  India,  cut  off 
almost  entirely  from  English  influences,  were  in 
many  respects  a  grotesque  yet  pathetic  imitation 
of  the  lives  that  their  friends  were  leading  at  home. 
One  often  hears  the  complaint  that  the  frequency 
of  communication  between  England  and  India  has 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


197 


in  reality  set  the  two  countries  farther  apart,  instead 
of  drawing  them  closer  together,  and  that  English¬ 
men  in  India  now  understand  the  natives  far  less 
than  did  those  of  former  generations,  who,  being 
practically  exiled  for  life,  adapted  themselves  to 
circumstances — circumstances  frequently  including 
an  Indian  wife.  But  the  early  history  of  Fort  St. 
George  tells  another  story — of  Englishmen  clinging 
with  a  tenacity  that  was  almost  ludicrous  to  the 
customs  of  their  native  land,  however  little  suited 
these  might  be  to  a  tropical  climate.  Every  Sunday, 
after  meeting  together,  the  governor  and  his  council 
went  to  attend  divine  service  at  St.  Mary’s  Church  in 
the  fort,  just  as  the  mayor  and  corporation  of  some 
small  provincial  town  in  England  might  have  gone 
to  their  parish  church.  St.  Mary’s  was  managed  by 
a  vestry,  which  elected  churchwardens  and  sidesmen, 
administered  charity  funds,  lent  money,  and  yearly 
listened  to  a  repetition  of  the  Church  of  England 
catechism  from  the  children  educated  in  the  school 
for  Eurasians,  who  were  subsequently  apprenticed  to 
various  trades — still  under  the  superintendence  of 
the  vestry. 

A  strict  discipline  was  maintained  over  the 
dwellers  in  the  fort,  who  were  bound  to  be  in  their 
houses  by  a  certain  hour  at  night,  and  were  heavily 
fined  for  “  swearing,  lying,  quarrelling,”  for  giving 
dinner-parties  on  Sunday,  and  for  omitting  to 
attend  church.  To  judge  from  the  records  left  to 
us,  all  the  English  in  Fort  St.  George  were  in  a 


198  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

continual  state  of  bickering  and  dispute  on  any  and 
every  pretext,  so  that  if  the  statute  against  quarrelling 
were  not  a  dead  letter,  the  fines  must  have  amounted 
to  a  considerable  sum.  The  Indian  climate  is  said 
not  to  be  improving  to  the  temper  even  in  these 
days  of  hygiene,  and  the  Company’s  servants  must 
have  suffered  more  from  it  than  their  representatives 
of  the  present  day.  Quinine  was  then  a  newly 
discovered  drug,  administered  to  kings  and  exalted 
personages  with  much  caution,  but  not  in  common 
use.  The  exiles  at  Fort  St.  George  fared  every  day 
as  was  the  custom  in  England,  and  washed  down 
an  excessive  quantity  of  heavy  and  stimulating  food 
with  copious  draughts  of  the  liquors  provided  by  the 
Company  for  their  servants — strong  beer  and  the 
coarse,  fruity  Shiraz  wine  made  by  the  Armenians 
of  Persia.  Governor  Pitt,  heedless  of  his  gout  and 
other  maladies,  was  eager  to  receive  presents  of 
bottled  cider  from  his  friends  in  England,  in  return 
for  the  jars  of  mangoes  or  of  fine  rice  and  the  casks 
of  arrack  which  he  sent  home  by  convenient  “  oppor¬ 
tunities.”  It  is  not  wonderful  that  there  were  so 
many  graves  in  the  cemetery  at  the  fort,  or  that  a 
••etired  Anglo-Indian  in  the  old-fashioned  comedies 
is  always  represented  with  the  temper  of  a  fiend  and 
the  complexion  of  a  guinea. 

'  At  first  Pitt’s  temper,  always  irascible,  seems  to 
have  vented  itself  chiefly  upon  those  with  whom  he 
was  brought  in  contact  in  the  way  of  business.  He 
lived  for  the  most  part  in  the  Company’s  garden 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


i99 


houses,  the  one  a  palace' by  the  mudbanks  of  the  evil¬ 
smelling  river  Cooum,  the  other  near  St.  Thomas’s 
Mount,  now  know  as  Guindy.  Here  he  could  amuse 
himself  with  gardening,  of  which  he  was  passionately 
fond.  The  care  of  his  gardens,  trees,  and  plantations 
at  home  was  at  least  as  important  to  him  as  the 
care  of  his  family,  and  his  letters  reiterate  inquiries 
after  his  “  young  trees  ”  and  “  nurseries.”  Like  many 
others,  he  was  anxious  to  make  English  plants  grow 
in  a  foreign  soil,  and  he  demanded  seeds  from  home, 
which  do  not  seem  to  have  thriven.  Those  who 
have  seen  the  forlorn  parodies  of  English  gardens 
which  some  exiles  still  try  to  maintain  amid  all 
the  luxuriance  of  tropical  vegetation,  will  be  able 
to  conjure  up  a  picture  of  the  governor,  having  re¬ 
turned  from  one  of  his  regal  progresses  abroad  with 
state  umbrella-bearer,  trumpeters,  and  armed  body¬ 
guard,  assuming  a  comfortable  deshabille,  and  moving 
up  and  down  among  the  scentless  stunted  blossoms 
which  were  his  chief  reminder  of  the  grey  skies 
and  bleak  winds  of  the  Wiltshire  downs  where  lay 
his  home. 

In  the  meanwhile  Mrs.  Pitt  was  at  Stratford  with 
the  younger  children,  the  eldest  son,  Robert,  having 
accompanied  his  father  to  Madras.  All  business 
was  left  in  her  hands,  and  to  a  woman  already 
burdened  with  the  care  of  a  large  family  this  must 
have  been  a  heavy  charge.  Not  only  had  she  to 
manage  the  estate,  the  plantations,  the  children’s 
education,  and  other  such  matters,  but  she  was 


200 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


expected  to  act  as  her  husband’s  agent  in  his  private 
trade.  He  was  continually  remitting  various  articles 
of  merchandise — such  as  rice,  quicksilver,  tea, 
“  dragon’s  blood,”  nutmegs,  arrack,  mangoes,  which 
he  required  her  to  sell  at  a  considerable  profit,  and 
whenever  a  suitable  opportunity  occurred  she  was 
ordered  to  send  him  out  English  goods  for  which 
he  could  find  a  market  in  the  bay.  It  was  the 
system  by  which  he  had  laid  the  foundations  of  his 
prosperity  ;  but  it  was  too  hard  a  task  for  a  solitary 
woman  living  far  removed  from  London,  and  Pitt’s 
requirements  were  unreasonable.  At  first  he  was 
fairly  w’ell  satisfied  with  her  proceedings,  and  in 
the  February  of  1700  he  wrote  in  quite  an  affection¬ 
ate  strain,  beginning  “  My  dear,”  and  concluding 
with  “  My  hearty  love  and  affection  to  yourself, 
wishing  us  a  happy  meeting.”  He  sent  a  small 
diamond  ring  to  his  elder  daughter,  Essex,  and 
“  two  small  stones  to  make  Lucy  something.” 

But  there  were  soon  clouds  upon  the  horizon. 
Whether  Mrs.  Pitt  grew  weary  of  Stratford  and  the 
society  of  her  “pretty  family,”  or  whether  her  husband 
grew  exacting  and  troublesome  past  endurance  by 
a  wife  whose  temper  was  none  of  the  meekest,  is 
not  clear  ;  but  they  fell  out,  and  attempted  to  drag 
their  kindred  and  acquaintance  into  their  disputes. 
There-  is  a  letter  to  the  governor  from  Peter  Godfrey, 
an  old  friend,  who  had  been  attacked  by  both 
sides,  and  who  was  evidently  a  person  of  no  tact 
or  discretion.  He  complains  that  it  was  useless  to 


AN  ILL'MATCHED  COUPLE. 


201 


keep  up  a  correspondence,  “  unless  I  should  write 
you  what  I  have  already  done,  that  your  writings 
signifies  little  to  one  who  will  do  but  what  she  will, 
or  advise  you  what  I  hear,  which  I  find  sours  you 
beyond  what  is  usual.  .  .  .  As  for  my  going  for 
Deal,  I  shall  be  as  ready,  if  my  company  may  be 
acceptable,  to  wait  upon  your  lady  thither  whenever 
she  will  embark  for  India.  .  .  .  Pray  what  is  it  reigns 
in  India  that  you  are  all  upon  the  quarrels?”  To 
this  pertinent  inquiry  the  governor  loftily  responded, 
after  professing  his  loyalty  to  old  friends  :  “  Those 
that  have  known  me  longest  must  say  that  ’twas 
never  my  temper  to  be  quarrelling  and  jangling.” 

If  Mrs.  Pitt  ever  seriously  entertained  the  thought 
of  going  out  to  Fort  St.  George,  she  soon  renounced 
it.  The  gossip,  backbiting,  and  grievances,  real  or 
imaginary,  of  well-meaning  friends  increased  the 
estrangement.  The  governor  speaks  of  receiving 
several  letters  with  complaints  against  his  wife,  but 
does  not  specify  the  correspondents  to  whom  he 
was  indebted  for  these  kind  offices.  At  the  end  of 
1701  he  wrote  to  his  sister’s  husband,  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Curgenven — who  must  have  been  a  man 
of  extraordinary  sweetness  of  temper,  since  he  was 
generally  on  fairly  good  terms  with  all  the  different 
members  of  the  Pitt  family : 

“  My  wife  has  writ  me  little  or  nothing  to  the 
purpose  this  year,  nor  has  sent  me  nothing, 
though  I  positively  ordered  her.  She  writes  me 
God  knows  what,  that  she  is  about  purchases,  but 


202 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


not  a  word  of  what  some  has  cost  or  others  will 
cost,  I  have  no  manner  of  account  of  what  I  left 
her,  what  she  has  received  or  paid  since,  what  I 
have  hence  sent  her,  or  what  it  sold  for,  but  all 
railing  against  one  or  other,  which  has  very  much 
exposed  my  business  and  done  me  a  great  deal  of 
prejudice,  so  that  I  find  great  inconveniences  by 
trusting  a  woman  with  business,  which  I  will  avoid 
for  the  future.” 

In  justice  to  Mrs.  Pitt’s  sex  it  may  be  noted 
that  when  her  husband  trusted  his  business  to  male 
agents,  he  was  no  whit  better  pleased  with  the 
result. 

The  superstitious  might  say  that  the  numerous 
vexations,  both  public  and  private,  which  began  to 
press  thickly  upon  the  governor  at  this  time,  and 
the  consequent  change  for  the  worse  in  his  temper, 
,  were  due  to  the  influence  of  the  great  diamond  of 
which  he  became  possessed  in  March,  1702.  Legends 
and  fancies  have  clung  about  every  celebrated  gem, 
from  the  Koh-i-Noor  to  the  great  ruby  of  Burgundy, 
and  Pitt’s  diamond,  now  known  as  the  “  Regent,” 
had  its  share  of  such  stories.  A  wild  tradition,  which 
Sir  Henry  Yule  pronounces  to  be  without  foundation, 
fabled  that  it  had  been  one  of  the  eyes  of  an  Indian 
god,  and  that  it  was  stolen  either  at  Pitt’s  instigation 
or  with  his  connivance.  Another  story  would  have 
that  it  was  found  in  the  mines  of  Partiala,  on  the 
Kistna,  by  a  slave,  who  concealed  it  in  a  wound  in 
his  thigh  and  fled.  Unluckily  for  himself  he  confided 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


203 


his  secret  to  the  captain  of  the  ship  in  which  he 
made  his  escape,  and  this  man  took  possession  of 
the  diamond  and  flung  the  slave  overboard.  From 
the  captain’s  hands  it  passed  to  “  an  eminent  diamond 
merchant,”  who  was  made  to  part  with  it  by  Governor 
Pitt  at  a  price  considerably  below  its  value.  The  story 
was  used  against  Pitt  by  his  enemies  in  the  council 
and  elsewhere,  and  was  echoed  by  Pope  in  his  well- 
known  verses  on  “  the  honest  factor.”  *  Thanks  to 
this  and  to  other  stories  of  a  similar  nature,  Pitt’s 
name  for  many  years  was  a  synonym  with  his  con¬ 
temporaries  for  a  rich,  tyrannical  nabob  who  was 
not  particular  how  he  shook  the  pagoda-tree  as  long 
as  the  golden  shower  descended  upon  himself. 

Pitt’s  own  account  of  the  transaction  is  given  in 
a  narrative  drawn  up  for  the  instruction  of  his  son 
in  case  of  his  own  death,  and  is  perfectly  simple 
and  straightforward.  After  the  most  solemn  pro¬ 
testations  that  he  is  telling  the  truth,  he  explains 
that,  hearing  there  were  large  diamonds  for  sale  in 
Madras,  some  two  or  three  years  after  his  arrival 
as  governor,  he  announced  his  willingness  to  buy 
them;  that  Ramchund,  “one  of  the  most  eminent 

*  Asleep  and  naked  as  an  Indian  lay, 

An  honest  factor  stole  a  gem  away  : 

He  pledged  it  to  the  knight ;  the  knight  had  wit, 

So  kept  the  diamond,  and  the  rogue  was  bit. 

— Moral  Essays,  III. 

Originally  the  last  line  ran,  “So  robbed  the  robber,  and  was 

rich  as  P - .”  Sir  Balaam  is  supposed,  on  very  inadequate 

ground,  to  have  been  intended  for  Pitt. 


204 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


diamond  merchants  in  those  parts,”  brought  down 
a  number  of  stones  to  the  fort,  and  among  them 
the  great  diamond,  for  which  he  asked  so  large 
a  price  that  Pitt  would  have  nothing  to  say  to 
it.  Some  time  later  Ramchund  returned  with  the 
stone,  and  after  a  prolonged  course  of  the  haggling 
which  an  Oriental  always  expects  with  every  bargain, 
great  or  small,  the  governor  bought  the  stone  for 
48,000  pagodas,*  and  remained  on  friendly  terms 
with  the  merchant,  with  whom  he  continued  to  have 
dealings  and  in  whose  hands  he  left  a  considerable 
sum  of  money  at  his  departure.  In  all  his  dealings 
Pitt  shows  himself  a  just  man,  even  generous  on 
many  occasions  ;  and  although  he  may  sometimes 
have  been  hard  and  arbitrary,  there  is  no  ground 
for  the  belief  that  he  would  have  taken  advantage 
of  his  official  position  to  bully  a  merchant,  or  that 
he  would  have  sullied  his  fingers  with  dishonest 
gain. 

But,  once  started,  the  legend  grew  and  increased, 
and  still  hangs  like  a  cloud  about  the  memory  of 
the  governor.  Lady  Russell  mentions  a  tradition 
of  Swallowfield,  the  house  bought  by  Pitt  in  his 
latter  years,  in  which  he  died,  “  that  at  certain 
times  the  ghost  of  a  ‘  black  man  ’  walks  down 
Queen  Anne’s  gallery,  and  that  he  is  in  some 
way  connected  with  the  diamond — either  he  is 
the  murdered  slave  who  originally  found  it  in  the 
mines  of  Parkal  [Partiala],  or  he  is  an  emissary  of 
*  About  ,£24,000. 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


205 


the  god  Jagrenat,  one  of  whose  eyes  furnished  the 
diamond.”  * 

However  it  was  acquired,  the  great  diamond 
brought  nothing  but  care  and  misfortune  to  its 
possessors.  Pitt’s  feverish  anxiety  lest  it  should  be 
stolen,  spoiled  in  the  cutting,  or  sold  below  its 
value,  told  grievously  on  his  health  and  temper.  Its 
purchaser,  the  Regent  Duke  of  Orleans,  died  before 
completing  the  instalments  of  the  payment,  for  which 
presumably  the  French  Government  is  still  in  debt 
to  Pitt’s  heirs, f  unless  the  heirs  indemnified  them¬ 
selves  by  keeping  some  boxes  of  jewels,  lodged 
with  Pitt  by  the  Regent  as  a  pledge,  that  disappear 
from  the  story.  After  the  September  massacres 
in  1792,  the  diamond  was  stolen  from  the  Garde 
Meuble,  where  it  had  been  placed  for  safety  with 
the  other  Crown  jewels,  and  was  not  recovered 
till  the  end  of  1793,  when  information  given  to 
the  police  enabled  them  to  find  it  in  a  cabaret  of  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain.  During  the  troublous  times 
that  followed  it  was  twice  pawned,  once  to  a  German 
and  once  to  a  banker  of  Amsterdam,  who  admitted 
gaping  crowds  to  view  a  facsimile  of  the  diamond 
in  a  glass  case,  while  the  real  jewel  was  all  the 
while  hidden  in  his  wife’s  stays.  Napoleon  redeemed 

*  Swallowfield  and  Its  Owners. 

t  When  Pitt’s  children  pressed  for  the  payment  of  the 
remainder,  the  French  Government  acknowledged  the  debt, 
but  declared  “  it  was  impossible  to  enter  into  the  past 
transactions  of  the  Regent.” 


206 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


it,  and  wore  it  set  in  the  pommel  of  his  sword 
until  his  fall.  It  is  now  kept  in  the  Louvre. 

After  becoming  possessed  of  this  stone,  Pitt  could 
know  no  rest  until  it  was  cut  and  polished.  He 
would  not  trust  it  to  an  agent,  and  as  his  affairs 
at  home  were  in  much  confusion  “  for  want  of 
understanding  as  well  as  [for]  some  perverseness  ” 
on  the  part  of  his  wife,  he  decided  to  send  his  son 
home  in  charge  of  it.  Robert  Pitt  had  long  been 
desirous  to  return  to  England  ;  but  the  instructions 
given  him,  at  his  departure  and  afterwards,  by  his 
affectionate  father  would  have  dismayed  the  most 
self-confident.  Amongst  other  injunctions  laid  upon 
the  luckless  young  man,  who  cannot  have  been  more 
than  three-and-twenty,  we  find  that  he  was  to  write 
continual  reports  to  his  father  of  all  public  and 
private  affairs  that  might  affect  his  interests  ;  to 
preserve  the  great  diamond  from  all  accidents  that 
might  befall  it  on  the  way,  including  the  capture 
of  the  ship  by  an  enemy  ;  to  superintend  the  plan¬ 
tations  and  nurseries  at  Stratford,  the  cutting  of 
the  diamond,  and  the  education  of  his  brothers  and 
sisters ;  to  make  himself  master  of  fortification  and 
gunnery  ;  to  beware  of  vices  and  of  an  inconvenient 
or  a  disreputable  marriage  ;  and  never  to  lend  money 
but  on  unquestionable  security.  He  was  perpetually 
exhorted  to  be  very  loving  to  his  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  to  be  “  very  dutiful  ”  to  the  mother 
whose  “  meddling  ”  in  her  husband’s  affairs  he  was 
at  the  same  time  enjoined  to  suppress. 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE.  207 

His  first  report  on  her  proceedings  and  behaviour 
during  her  husband’s  absence  was  received  by  the 
governor  with  this  comment:  “If  what  you  write 
of  your  mother  be  true,  I  think  she  is  mad,  and 
wish  she  was  well  secured  in  Bedlam.”  One  could 
wish  that  Pitt  had  condescended  to  explain  how 
his  son  was  to  retain  any  respect  for  either  parent 
under  these  circumstances. 

No  sooner  had  he  reached  England  than  Robert 
found  himself  involved  in  a  turmoil  of  business 
and  perplexity.  His  mother  naturally  resented  his 
interference  with  her ;  his  brothers  and  sisters  were 
not  inclined  to  accept  his  control  ;  candid  friends 
were  eager  to  let  the  governor  know  how  Robert 
quarrelled  with  his  family  and  neglected  his  father’s 
old  acquaintance ;  and  the  fearful  storm,  to  which 
Addison  alludes  in  his  lines  on  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  had  blown  down  a  number  of  trees 
on  the  Stratford  estate,  which  the  Dean  and  Chapter 
of  Salisbury  claimed  as  “  top  and  lop.”  Pitt  was 
already  annoyed  with  his  son  for  having  neglected 
to  write  to  him  both  during  the  voyage  and  after 
his  arrival  in  England,  and  for  drawing  a  bill  on 
him  for  three  hundred  dollars  when  his  ship  stopped 
at  the  Cape.  The  exactions  of  the  cathedral 
dignitaries  put  the  finishing  touch  to  his  wrath. 
“  Does  the  Dean  of  Sarum  think  that  God  Almighty 
sent  that  storm  for  they  to  make  advantage  out 
of  others’  losses  ?  ”  he  inquires  with  savage  irony. 

I  hear  there  was  a  fast  ordered  for  that  storm. 


208 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


Sure  those  gentlemen  that  design  to  get  by  it 
will  make  a  feast,  and  be  so  ungodly  as  to  wish 
for  more  such.  It  is  therefore  my  order  to  with¬ 
stand  their  injustice,  and  not  to  suffer  them  to 
meddle  with  a  tree,  although  I  spend  the  value  of 
the  estate  in  defence  thereof.” 

There  was  some  excuse  for  Pitt’s  outburst,  since 
his  heart  must  have  been  very  sore  at  this  time. 
For  his  wife  he  had  no  tenderness  left — in  outward 
show  at  least ;  but  his  heart  yearned  over  the 
children,  whom  he  had  left  in  the  nursery  and 
who  were  growing  into  men  and  women.  He  had 
particularly  ordered  Robert  to  send  him  a  full 
account  of  them,  their  looks,  and  their  dispositions, 
as  soon  as  he  was  at  home  ;  and  Robert’s  first  letter 
was  so  meagre  and  unsatisfactory  as  to  make  his 
father  declare  that  he  would  not  have  known  from  it 
of  their  existence.  The  first  letters  that  came  to 
P'ort  St.  George  from  the  governor’s  family  after 
their  brother’s  arrival  bore  nothing  but  complaints, 
each  against  all.  It  was  a  cruel  disappointment  for 
the  father,  who  had  expected  some  consolation  for  his 
business  anxieties  in  the  well-being  and  happiness 
of  his  children.  Mrs.  Pitt  immediately  hatched  a 
violent  quarrel  with  her  son  about  the  control  of 
some  property  near  Salisbury  ;  Essex  wrote  to  her 
father  to  accuse  Robert  of  ill-temper  and  unkindness  ; 
Robert  complained  that,  having  been  given  the 
management  of  his  sisters’  affairs,  they  would  not 
live  with  him.  A  better-tempered  man  than  the 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


209 


governor  would  have  been  sorely  tried ;  and,  to 
crown  all,  Robert  must  needs  go  and  marry  almost 
as  soon  as  he  had  set  foot  on  English  shores. 

The  marriage  seems  to  have  been  the  best  piece 
of  work  that  Robert  ever  did.  The  lady  was  well 
connected,  being  the  daughter  of  Harriet,  Viscountess 
Grandison  (who  after  the  death  of  her  first  husband 
had  married  Lieutenant-General  Stewart).  Her 
fortune  was  slender,  being  no  more  than  £2,000 
down,  with  an  additional  £1,000  to  be  paid  on  the 
death  of  her  step-father  ;  but  she  was  rich  in  other 
ways.  All  her  father-in-law’s  correspondents  speak 
of  her  sweetness,  her  accomplishments,  her  beauty, 
her  sense,  and  her  charm,  and  even  the  governor 
fell  under  her  spell  when  he  was  introduced  to  her. 
In  such  a  quarrelsome  family  she  had  a  difficult 
part  to  play,  and  she  seems  to  have  laboured  for 
peace  whenever  she  could,  and  to  have  received 
the  measure  of  gratitude  usually  bestowed  on  those 
who  try  to  reconcile  contending  parties. 

In  his  letter  to  his  father  Robert  pleaded  that 
his  marriage  had  been  made  in  deference  to  the 
governor’s  injunctions,  and  with  the  approval  of  his 
mother  and  Uncle  Curgenven,  and  that  it  was  “the 
universal  report  of  the  Governor’s  good  and  generous 
character”  that  had  prevailed  upon  Lady  Grandison 
to  give  her  consent  to  it.  All  these  fair  words,  and 
the  hope  delicately  expressed  by  Robert  that  his 
father  would  not  abandon  him,  and  would  find 
the  new  daughter-in-law  “a  comfort,”  did  nothing 

14 


2  10 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


to  mollify  Pitt :  “  I  believe  you  play  the  same 
game  with  me  as  with  your  mother,  who  writes 
me  you  were  married  before  she  saw  your  wife ; 
and  I  believe  you  were  so  before  you  wrote  to 
me,  for  several  correspondents  tell  me  that  was 
the  first  thing  you  did,  which  has  justly  brought 
you  the  character  of  a  giddy  inconsiderate  young 
fellow.”  To  his  friend  Captain  Harrison,  Pitt  had 
more  to  say  in  the  same  strain  :  “  My  disobedient 
son  has  not  followed  any  one  direction  or  order 
of  mine,  or  had  any  regard  to  the  advice  I  gave 
him  before  he  parted  with  me.  His  sudden 
captivation  must  certainly  have  rendered  him  a 
light  and  inconsiderate  fellow  in  the  eyes  of  all 
men.  The  lady  Pm  a  stranger  to,  and  I  believe 
shall  always  be  so ;  if  her  character  answers  what 
you  write,  I  wish  she  have  not  the  worst  of  it ; 
though,  with  her  fortune  and  what  he  has  of  his 
own,  with  the  advantages  I  have  given  him  in  his 
education,  are  [sic]  very  good  working  tools,  and 
all  he  must  ever  expect  from  me.” 

*  tz 

Being  determined  not  to  waste  his  substance  upon 
a  family  that  had  disappointed  him,  Governor  Pitt 
now  wrote  minute  directions  to  his  friend  Sir  Stephen 
Evance  on  the  subject  of  the  allowance  to  be  made 
to  wife  and  children:  “You  may  permit  my  wife 
to  receive  the  income  of  my  land  at  Old  Sarum 
and  St.  Mary  Blandford  in  Dorsetshire,  to  maintain 
her,  her  two  daughters,  and  three  sons  ;  two  of  the 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


211 


latter  I  believe  may  be  come  away,  if  so  I  desire 
you  to  disburse  their  maintenance,  in  which  pray 
be  thrifty,  and  charge  them  so  too,  or  I’ll  put  them 
to  short  allowance  when  I  come  home,  and  if  my 
wife  draws  any  bills  upon  you,  I  order  ’em  to  be 
returned,  and  not  a  penny  paid.  If  she  can’t  live 
upon  the  income  of  my  land  let  her  starve,  and 
all  her  children  with  her,  therefore  pay  not  one 
penny  that  she  draws  upon  you.” 

After  this,  Mrs.  Pitt  settled  at  Bath  with  her 
daughters.  Robert  dutifully  invited  his  sisters  to 
spend  a  winter  in  his  house  in  town,  in  order  that 
they  might  have  “  the  benefit  of  masters  and  the 
best  society,”  but  complained  that  his  civility  was 
thrown  away,  as  they  were  set  against  him  for  some 
unknown  reason.  He  was  now  M.P.  for  Old  Sarum, 
with  the  governor’s  approval ;  but  the  style  in  which 
he  thought  it  necessary  to  live  and  the  amount 
spent  on  his  election  met  with  nothing  but  censure 
from  his  economical  father:  “You  went  down  to 
Old  Sarum  against  the  election,  sent  down  a  man 
cook  some  time  before,  coach  and  six,  five  or  six 
in  liveries,  open  house  for  three  or  four  months,  and 
put  me  to  about  £500  charge.  Where  was  the  need 
of  this?  It  never  cost  me  above  £10,  which  was 
for  a  dinner  the  day  of  election.  ...  I  charge  you 
that  all  my  business  be  managed  with  the  greatest 
secrecy,  and  quiet  imaginable,  and  without  ostentation. 
But  I  think  it  is  too  late  to  forbid  that,  since  you 
have  set  up  to  live  at  the  rate  I  hear  you  do,  which 


212 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


has  not  created  me  a  little  envy,  and  makes  me  often 
remember  Osborne  that  children  are  certain  trouble 
but  uncertain  comforts.” 

The  great  diamond  was  entrusted  to  Mr.  Cope,  a 
jeweller,  for  cutting  and  polishing.  It  was  a  tedious 
process,  as  there  were  several  flaws,  and  the  pieces 
had  to  be  sawn  off  at  great  expense.  However, 
as  three  of  these  fragments  sold  for  ,£2,000,  Robert 
was  in  hopes  that  his  father  would  be  appeased. 
Unfortunately,  at  the  beginning  of  the  work,  he  had 
told  his  father  that  Mr.  Cope  expected  the  stone 
to  make  a  brilliant  of  two  hundred  and  eighty 
carats.  As  the  cutting  progressed,  Mr.  Cope  found 
the  outer  coat  so  full  of  deep  flaws  that  he  was 
obliged  to  take  off  nine  pieces  altogether,  and  reduce 
the  weight  to  less  than  one  hundred  and  forty 
carats.  Nothing  would  convince  Pitt — who  had 
expected  it  to  cut  to  three  hundred  carats — that  his 
son,  Mr.  Cope,  and  all  concerned  had  not  grossly 
and  maliciously  mismanaged  the  business,  and  he 
wrote  himself  to  tell  the  jeweller  his  opinion  of  him  : 
“You  told  my  son  280  [carats]  would  make  it  the 
wonder  of  the  world.  I  am  sure  it  will  be  so,  your 
paring  it  to  140.”  He  concluded  with  the  threat 
to  come  home  speedily  and  discuss  more  fully  with 
Mr.  Cope  about  the  matter — a  cheerful  prospect 
for  Mr.  Cope,  who  must  have  breathed  a  fervent 
thanksgiving  when  the  state  of  the  Company’s  affairs 
detained  the  governor  at  Fort  St.  George. 

The  stone  being  in  what  Robert  Pitt  quaintly 


AN  ILL-MAT CHED  COUPLE. 


213 


styles  “  its  true  polite  shape,”  the  next  thing  was  to 
find  a  purchaser.  Pitt  was  always  of  the  opinion 
that  if  the  war  were  over,  the  King  of  France  or 
the  King  of  Spain  would  be  “  the  fairest  chapman 
for  it.”  He  was  determined  not  to  part  with  it  for 
less  than  £"1,500  a  carat  to  any  foreign  purchaser. 
“  When  we  have  a  peace,  it  is  not  unlikely  but  the 
French  King  may  buy  it  out  of  his  wonted  vain¬ 
glory,  that  the  world  may  see,  after  so  expensive 
a  war,  he  is  able  to  buy  such  a  jewel  from  all  the 
princes  in  Europe.”  At  the  same  time,  if  it  were 
bought  for  the  English  Crown,  Pitt  was  willing  to 
let  it  go  at  a  reduced  price.  Believing  it  to  be  the 
finest  diamond  in  the  world,  he  was  very  anxious 
that  it  should  remain  in  England,  and  had  several 
devices  by  which  this  end  was  to  be  secured.  “  If 
we  settle  Charles  III.  on  the  throne  of  Spain,  I  know 
nothing  that  is  portable  [which]  he  can  [so  well] 
make  his  acknowledgements  to  our  Queen  in,  as 
that  concern  of  mine.”  This  scheme  proving  im¬ 
practicable,  the  governor  tried  another.  There  was  a 
general  rumour  that  the  nation  was  “so  gracefully 
inclined  as  to  present  Her  Royal  Majesty  with  the 
title  of  Empress,”  and  he  suggested  that  at  the  same 
time  she  should  be  presented  with  the  great  diamond. 
So  desirous  was  he  to  oblige  that  if  it  were  not 
convenient  for  him  to  be  paid  in  ready  money,  he 
was  willing  to  accept  “  a  Parliamentary  security.” 
I11  the  case  of  an  offer  from  a  foreign  potentate  he 
was  more  particular. 


214 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


The  diamond  had  made  a  great  sensation  in 
London  ;  others  besides  its  owner  were  of  opinion 
that  it  would  make  a  handsome  addition  to  the 
Crown  jewels,  and  the  queen  was  approached  on 
the  subject.  But  good  Queen  Anne  declined  to  have 
it ;  she  had  never,  she  said,  in  all  her  life  bought 
a  jewel  for  herself,  and  she  considered  the  price 
far  too  heavy  for  a  useless  article  of  luxury.  If 
the  nation  wanted  to  spend  money,  she  would  much 
rather  that  Greenwich  Hospital  were  finished. 

Soon  after  Robert  Pitt  had  reached  home,  and 
before  any  news  of  him  or  of  the  diamond  had  come 
to  Fort  St.  George,  John  Pitt  died  at  Masulipatam. 
As  has  been  said,  the  cousins  at  one  time  were 
allied  in  their  “  interloping  ”  ventures,  and  by  Pitt’s 
account  John  was  indebted  to  him  for  the  money 
with  which  he  started  in  business :  “  I  may  say, 
without  vanity,  I  was,  under  God,  his  only  support.” 
Of  late  years  there  had  been  an  estrangement 
between  them,  caused,  in  part  at  least,  by  the 
conduct  of  John  Pitt’s  wife,  whom  the  governor 
hated  on  account  of  some  insult  that  he  supposed 
himself  to  have  received  from  her.  After  John’s 
death  his  “  virtuous  melancholy  relict,”  to  quote  the 
governor’s  phrase,  begged  that  his  corpse  might  be 
buried  at  Fort  St.  George.  Pitt  offered  no  objection 
to  this  ;  but  on  being  further  requested  to  “  compli¬ 
ment  the  corpse  ”  on  its  arrival  with  a  salute  from 
the  fort  guns,  he  roundly  refused.  His  cousin  John, 
on  his  last  coming  into  the  roads  at  Madras,  had 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE.  215 

declined  to  salute  the  king’s  flag,  and  was  therefore 
entitled  to  no  civility  from  him.  The  story  that 
reached  kindred  and  acquaintance  in  England  was 
that  the  governor  had  denied  Christian  burial  to  his 
cousin’s  body,  and  Robert  was  at  great  pains  to 
circulate  the  true  version  of  the  case.  It  cannot 
be  said  that  Pitt  treated  his  cousin’s  memory  with 
decent  respect,  even  if  he  were  blameless  with  regard 
to  the  funeral  ceremonies  ;  he  cannot  allude  to  John’s 
death  in  the  most  distant  manner  without  going 
out  of  his  way  to  observe  that  it  was  no  loss.  He 
has  always  a  sneer  for  John’s  widow;  and,  having 
occasion  to  speak  of  John’s  son,  he  takes  pains  to 
add,  “If  he  be  no  better  than  the  father  ’tis  no 
great  matter  if  there  be  never  any  more  of  the 
breed  of  him.” 

Harsh  and  ungracious  as  all  this  sounds,  it  is 
clear  from  his  letters  that  Pitt  could  be  kindly  and 
generous.  He  was  continually  helping  those  who 
were  in  distress,  or  pretended  that  they  were  ;  and 
although  he  might  be  deceived  by  one  impostor  at 
the  beginning  of  the  week,  by  the  end  of  it  he  was 
as  ready  as  ever  to  set  another  on  his  legs.  The 
nephew  of  Pitt’s  old  friend,  Sir  Theodore  Jansen, 
made  his  appearance  at  Fort  St.  George  and 
borrowed  thirty  pagodas  *  of  the  governor,  who  told 
Robert  to  recover  what  he  could  of  the  loan  from 
the  uncle.  Going  down  to  the  hospital,  Pitt  found 
a  young  Englishman,  who  told  a  pitiful  story.  He 

*  “  Which  at  12s.  6 d.  bottomry  is  ^18  5^.,”  explains  Pitt. 


2l6 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


was  the  son  of  Brigadier  Ingoldsby,  and,  having  run 
away  from  school,  by  some  means  had  entered  the 
Company’s  service,  and  was  now  “  very  ill  and  like 
to  die.”  Upon  this  Pitt  had  him  nursed  till  he 
recovered,  excused  him  from  duty,  lent  him  money 
for  his  outfit,  and  put  him  on  board  a  homeward- 
bound  vessel  under  the  charge  of  a  friendly  captain, 
who  promised  to  let  him  eat  at  his  table  during  the 
voyage.  “If  he  should  prove  an  impostor,”  wrote 
the  governor  to  his  son,  “  there  is  but  so  much  lost ; 
if  otherwise,  give  my  service  to  his  father,  and  tell 
him  I  doubt  not  but  his  son  has  seen  his  errors,  and 
will  be  dutiful  for  the  future,  having  sowed  his  wild 
oats.”  Robert,  who  had  received  many  lectures 
on  lending  money  upon  insufficient  security,  replied 
to  his  father’s  letter  with  unusual  promptness  ;  Sir 
Theodore  Jansen  had  made  no  objections  to  paying 
his  nephew’s  debts,  but  the  soi-disant  Ingoldsby 
was  an  impostor. 

The  governor’s  kindness  was  equally  thrown  away 
upon  a  certain  Mr.  Finch,  nephew  to  Lord  Nottingham, 
who  came  out  to  Fort  St.  George  in  the  Company’s 
service.  Pitt  recommended  him  as  a  member  of  the 
council,  and  treated  him  very  well,  until  “  a  very 
impudent  action  ”  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Finch  called 
for  a  reprimand.  As  this  action  was  to  “  send  for 
the  cook  to  the  general  table,  and  there  beat  him  till 
he  bled  like  a  pig,”  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  reproof 
was  undeserved  ;  but  Mr.  Finch  in  a  fit  of  the  sulks 
resigned  the  Company’s  service  and  went  home. 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


217 


Exhortations  to  Robert  to  show  kindness  to  the 
poorer  members  of  his  family  are  very  frequent  : 
“  I  would  desire  you  to  have  some  regard  to  your 
uncle  and  aunt  Willis.  She  is  the  only  sister  I  have 
alive,  and  if  they  have  a  daughter  I  should  take 
it  kindly  if  your  wife  would  take  her  into  her  house 
and  give  her  a  reputable  education,  which  charge 
I  will  willingly  allow  you,  and  help  his  sons  what 
you  can,  and  remember  that  we  are  not  born  only 
for  ourselves,  nor  has  God  Almighty  bestowed  this 
plentiful  fortune  on  me  to  give  it  only  amongst  my 
own  children,  but  also  necessitous  relations  and 
friends,  which  I  will  not  fail  to  do  for  His  glory 
and  my  own  comfort  and  happiness.”  A  little  later 
Robert  is  ordered  to  put  the  youngest  of  the  Willis 
boys  to  a  very  good  school  and  maintain  him  there 
at  the  charge  of  the  governor,  who  intended  to 
have  him  educated  and  started  in  the  world. 

It  was  unnecessary  to  be  related  by  blood  to 
the  governor  in  order  to  receive  such  substantial 
kindnesses.  A  godson  of  his,  whose  father  had 
been  killed  at  Acheen,  leaving  a  widow  and  a  large 
family,  was  sent  to  England  by  Pitt’s  arrangement 
to  be  boarded  in  the  house  of  “  some  good  body  ” 
at  Salisbury  while  he  attended  the  free  school. 
There  he  found  two  other  boys  who  were  being 
maintained  at  the  expense  of  Pitt,  their  father’s 
godfather,  in  order  that  their  slender  fortune  of  ,£1,000 
might  remain  intact  until  they  were  old  enough 
to  work  for  themselves. 


2l8 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


The  governor  was  ready  to  help  his  proteges  in 
other  ways.  As  a  matrimonial  agent  he  seems  to 
have  been  shrewd  and  energetic.  Mr.  John  Haynes 
writes  to  him  from  Cuddalore  : 

“Yours  of  the  nth  instant  I  received,  whereby 
find  my  expectations  of  the  widow  wholly  frustrated, 
which  is  a  great  affliction  hard  to  bear,  but  that 
my  evil  stars  of  late  years  have  been  predominant, 
which  have  accustomed  me  to  frequent  disappoint¬ 
ments  ;  therefore  hope  and  believe  this  will  not 
quite  break  my  heart ;  though  to  miss  a  rich  widow, 
tolerably  handsome  and  not  very  old,  is  in  my 
opinion  a  much  greater  misfortune  than  to  lose  half 
a  dozen  other  mistresses,  though  in  their  prime  of 
youth  and  beauty  (if  without  money).  I  find  there 
is  no  coming  in  for  a  rich  widow  in  Madras  with¬ 
out  securing  the  reversion  some  years  before  their 
husband’s  death,  therefore  think  had  best  bespeak 
the  present  widow  against  her  becoming  so  a  second 
time,  thereby  to  anticipate  other  pretenders.  So 
much  for  widows  at  present,  having  but  to  return 
your  Honour  thanks  for  your  kind  offer  of  assistance 
had  there  been  hopes  of  succeeding.  ...  In  the 
postscript  you  are  pleased  to  commend  one  Mrs. 
Middleton  for  a  pretty  woman,  and  who,  you  believe, 
will  make  an  excellent  wife.  I  cannot  doubt  but 
your  experienced  judgement  therein  must  be  staunch 
as  in  other  more  weighty  affairs  .  .  .  and  should 
think  myself  extremely  happy  in  such  a  wife,  but 
cannot,  in  conscience,  endeavour  to  compass  it  by 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE.  219 

making  the  lady  miserable.  You  well  know  that 
the  perquisites  of  a  poor  drudging  book  keeper  will 
not  maintain  that  lady  as  she  deserves  .  .  .  but 
were  I  thought  worthy  to  have  the  title  Deputy 
Governor  conferred  on  me  by  your  Honour,  should 
readily  become  a  suitor  to  the  good  lady  to  complete 
my  happiness  in  this  world.” 

The  ladies  were  also  desirous  of  Pitt’s  aid  and 
advice  before  bestowing  themselves  in  marriage. 
Isabella  Haynes  (presumably  sister  to  John  Haynes) 
writes  : 

“  The  gentlemen  are  pretty  civil  to  me  now, 
but  I  can  attribute  that  to  nothing  but  Your 
Honour’s  goodness  in  making  them  so.  I  now 
humbly  make  bold  to  acquaint  Your  Honour  that 
I  have  some  thoughts  of  marrying  Captain  Green- 
haugh,  if  Your  Honour  shall  approve  of  it,  but  not 
else.  Indeed  the  only  reason  that  induces  me  to  it 
is,  I  formerly  made  him  a  kind  of  promise,  though, 
after  which  with  my  own  free  consent  it  was  quite, 
as  I  thought,  broke  off  by  my  brother,  but  he  has 
now  again  so  importunately  renewed  his  courtship 
that  I  know  not  how  to  be  rid  of  him.  Another 
reason  is  that  I  may  be  freed  from  the  courtship 
of  some  others  in  this  place,  which  I  think  would 
be  but  as  indifferent  matches  as  the  other.  Could 
I  have  got  home  to  England  I  would  not  have 
stayed  here  for  the  best  husband  in  India.” 

Pitt’s  violent  temper  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
dreaded  by  some  of  his  friends,  who  had  a  large 


220 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


confidence  in  his  abilities  and  in  his  good-nature. 
One  correspondent  begs  leave  to  introduce  a  Mrs. 
Anne  Miller,  “  who  goes  to  your  parts  to  make 
her  fortune,  her  father  is  a  vintner  and  an  honest 
man,  but  has  many  children,  and  lives  in  Wood 
Street.”  Personally  Mrs.  Anne  Miller  was  unknown 
to  the  writer,  who  had  been  asked  to  recommend 
her  by  his  wife’s  monthly  nurse,  but  he  had  no 
scruple  in  troubling  Pitt  with  her  story.  A  lady 
begs  Pitt  to  befriend  one  or  other  of  her  cousins, 
of  whom  she  seems  to  have  had  a  large  contingent, 
and  to  send  her  the  accounts  of  her  small  adventure 
in  his  hands.  A  woman’s  little  attempts  at  specu¬ 
lation  are  generally  the  wonder  and  the  torment 
of  her  male  friends,  and  the  governor,  while  raising 
no  objection  to  the  cousins,  writes  to  Robert :  “  There 
is  as  great  confusion  in  my  accounts  as  in  my 
family.  Pray  discharge  that  adventure  of  Lady 
Granville’s,  and  let  me  hear  no  more  of  it.” 

Sometimes  the  choleric  governor  was  driven  to 
act  as  peacemaker,  and  tried  to  reconcile  fathers 
and  sons  with  indifferent  success.  Sir  John  Chardin 
thanks  Pitt  for  his  goodness  to  his  son,  which  has 
been  thrown  away  upon  the  worthless  young  man, 
who  cannot  be  persuaded  to  amend  his  ways.  A 
certain  Edward  Ettrick  offended  his  father  by  his 
marriage,  and  Pitt,  so  ungracious  to  his  son  in  like 
case,  writes  to  tell  Mr.  Ettrick  how  Edward  has 
improved  in  his  behaviour  of  late,  and  to  beg  him 
to  be  lenient,  and  to  allow  the  young  couple 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


221 


something  for  their  housekeeping.  “  For  is  it  not 
much  better  to  give  our  children  something  in  our 
life-time  to  see  how  they  manage  it  and  improve 
it,  than  to  keep  it  like  curmudgeons,  and  leave  it 
them  at  our  death  because  we  can’t  help  it  ?  ” 

From  all  this  it  would  seem  that  Pitt,  if  hot- 
tempered  and  exacting,  was  tender-hearted,  and 
would  have  been  affectionate  if  he  had  met  with 
any  encouragement  in  his  own  family.  Had  he 
found  a  gentle  but  high-spirited  wife,  who  would 
have  soothed  his  paroxysms  of  wrath  without  fearing 
them,  and  had  his  children  been  loving  and  happy 
amongst  themselves,  even  the  influence  of  bottled 
cider  in  a  South  Indian  climate  might  not  have 
had  a  serious  effect  on  his  health  and  spirits.  Un¬ 
luckily  for  all  parties,  Mrs.  Pitt  was  as  violent  as 
himself,  without  the  warm  heart  under  the  harsh 
exterior.  When  her  family  were  outwardly  in  decent 
accord,  she  was  eager  to  foment  new  quarrels,  and 
the  strife  between  herself  and  Robert  was  an  open 
scandal  to  all  the  governor’s  acquaintance.  Robert 
is  aptly  described  by  one  of  his  father’s  friends 
as  having  “  a  great  deal  of  wit,  but  wanting  solid 
wisdom.”  He  had  inherited  an  uncontrollable  temper 
from  both  parents,  and  it  was  not  improved  by 
the  gout  and  other  painful  complaints  which  broke 
clown  his  health  in  comparative  youth.  All  the 
children  of  Thomas  and  Jane  Pitt  seem  to  have 
resembled  one  or  the  other  of  their  parents  too 
closely  for  them  to  live  in  tolerable  harmony. 


222 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


A  possible  exception  was  Lucy,  afterwards  Lady 
Stanhope,  whom  a  tradition  in  her  husband’s  family 
makes  “gentle.”  Before  her  marriage  she  joined 
with  Essex  in  quarrelling  with  her  brother  and 
defying  father  and  guardians  ;  but  she  may  have 
been  led  astray  by  her  elder  sister.  She  met  with 
the  usual  fate  of  the  best  member  of  an  unamiable 
family,  sinking  early  into  the  grave — “  whither  she 
was  hurried  by  her  physicians,”  as  her  father  believed. 

For  some  time  after  Robert’s  return  to  England 
there  had  been  mutterings  and  grumblings — com¬ 
plaints  from  him  that  his  wife  was  not  treated  with 
proper  respect,  reproaches  from  his  mother  and 
sisters  that  he  used  them  unkindly;  and  in  1706 
the  storm  burst.  From  that  time  there  was  no 
further  hope  of  real  peace  in  the  family.  It  is 
difficult  from  the  governor’s  letters,  which  are  often 
inarticulate  in  their  fury,  to  make  out  the  final 
causes  of  the  explosion.  He  had,  or  thought  he 
had,  reason  to  be  jealous  of  his  wife.  Seeing  how 
little  he  professed  to  set  by  her,  it  is  strange  that 
he  should  have  been  annoyed,  but  his  pride  was 
wounded,  and  perhaps  in  the  corner  of  his  heart 
there  was  a  tender  feeling  for  the  woman  of  whom 
he  had  taken  no  notice  for  many  years,  save  to 
abuse  her.  Then  Robert’s  extravagance  and  his 
negligence  (real  or  supposed)  of  his  father’s  concerns 
were  a  perpetual  cause  of  irritation.  As  far  as  can 
be  guessed  from  Pitt’s  tirades,  Robert,  finding  he  had 
not  room  in  his  house  to  accommodate  his  mother 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


223 


and  sisters  (possibly  because  his  wife  was  expecting 
one  of  her  numerous  confinements),  had  obliged 
them  to  leave  it  ;  and  they  had  retaliated  by  turn¬ 
ing  out  of  doors  one  of  his  children  who  was  at 
Stratford.  Lastly,  William,  one  of  Pitt’s  younger 
sons,  had  died  of  small-pox,  and  the  charges  for 
his  funeral  were  what  his  father  thought  excessive. 

The  governor’s  letters  on  these  subjects  displayed 
powers  of  invective  worthy  of  his  grandson.  Up 
to  this  time  his  grim  sarcasms  and  sudden  bursts 
of  indignation  might  all  have  been  described  by 
the  homely  word  “  tantrums.”  One  feels  that  whilst 
thus  lashing  himself  into  fury,  he  could  have  been 
mollified  by  judicious  treatment,  and  that  it  might 
even  have  been  possible  to  make  him  laugh  over 
his  own  extravagances.  He  now  takes  a  different 
tone.  Disappointed  in  his  fondest  hopes,  wounded 
to  the  quick,  it  was  almost  impossible  henceforth 
for  him  to  be  pleased  with  anything  that  his  children 
might  do.  They  cared  nothing  for  him  nor  for 
each  other ;  they  resolved  to  go  their  own  way,  and 
make  the  whole  world  witness  to  their  disgraceful 
quarrels.  Let  them  have  it  as  they  would,  he  would 
trouble  himself  no  more  for  them. 

“  What  hellish  planet  is  it  that  influences  you  all, 
and  causes  such  unaccountable  distraction  that  it  has 
published  your  shame  to  the  world,  which  has  so 
affected  me  that  I  cannot  resolve  what  to  do  ? 
Have  all  of  you  shook  hands  with  shame,  that  you 
regard  not  any  of  the  ties  of  Christianity,  humanity, 


224 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


consanguinity,  duty,  good  morality,  or  anything  that 
makes  you  differ  from  beasts,  but  must  run  from 
one  end  of  the  kingdom  to  the  other,  aspersing  one 
another,  and  aiming  at  the  ruin  and  destruction  of 
each  other  ?  .  .  .  How.  do  you  think  this  has  chagrined 
me,  and  what  anxious  as  desperate  thoughts  it 
has  brought  into  my  mind,  and  damped  my  desire 
of  ever  seeing  you  more,  or  any  of  you  all,  for  I 
can  promise  myself  no  comfort  of  you.” 

A  week  later  he  writes  again  to  Robert : 

“  Not  only  your  letters,  but  all  I  have  from  friends 
are  stuffed  with  an  account  of  the  hellish  confusion 
that  is  in  my  family,  and  by  what  I  can  collect 
from  all  my  letters,  the  vileness  of  your  actions  on 
all  sides  are  not  to  be  paralleled  in  history.  Did 
ever  mother,  brother,  and  sisters,  study  one  another’s 
ruin  and  destruction  more  than  my  unfortunate  and 
cursed  family  have  done  ?  and  I  wish  you  have 
not  had  the  greatest  share  in  it,  for  I  cannot  believe 
you  innocent.  .  .  .  What  have  I  fatigued  for  after 
this  manner,  and  lived  so  many  years  in  exile  from 
my  country  and  friends  (I  had  enough  to  subsist 
on  and  that  very  handsomely  too)  but  to  make  my 
children  easy  in  their  circumstances  and  me  happy 
in  their  company  ;  and  having  by  God’s  blessing 
acquired  such  a  competency  as  I  never  expected 
or  could  hope  for,  so  as  that  I  should  have  been 
able  to  establish  a  family  as  considerable  as  any 
of  the  name,  except  our  kinsman  George  Pitt  [of 
Strathfieldsaye],  and  now  to  have  all  blasted  by  an 


AN  ILL'MATCHED  COUPLE. 


225 


infamous  wife  and  children !  It  is  such  a  shock 
as  man  never  met  with,  and  whether  I  shall  over¬ 
come  it  or  sink  under  it,  God  knows.  Is  this  the 
way  to  invite  me  home  ?  When  I  am  well  assured 
you  are  all  of  you  thoroughly  reformed,  I  may  think 
of  it ;  but  as  matters  stood  at  the  writing  of  your 
letter,  I  think  your  company  hell  itself.  .  .  . 

“It  is  said  in  all  companies  you  expose  your 
brothers  and  sisters,  who  ought  to  conceal  their 
faults  and  support  their  character.  .  .  .  What  makes 
you  quarrel  with  them  ?  Is  it  that  you  would  have 
me  think  that  you  are  the  saint  of  the  family  ?  No, 
I  know  you  too  well,  and  parted  with  you  when 
you  were  at  man’s  estate,  but  left  them  all  poor 
innocent  children.” 

He  then  inveighs  against  Robert’s  extravagance  : 

“  I  had  a  house  in  London  which  stood  me  in  £120 
per  annum,  kept  coach  and  horses,  servants  and  all 
answerable,  always  three  or  four  good  dishes  of 
meat  at  my  table,  as  good  wine  as  the  world  afforded, 
and  plenty,  and  made  my  friends  and  relations  very 
welcome,  and  had  always  twelve  or  fourteen  in 
family ;  my  pocket  expenses  and  all  manner  of 
others  included,  it  never  exceeded  a  thousand  pounds 
per  annum.  But  you  are  got  to  the  expensive  end 
of  the  town  [Robert  had  a  house  in  Golden  Square] 
where  money  melts  like  butter  against  the  sun.  .  .  . 
You  say  my  great  concern  [the  diamond]  is  the 
wonder  of  the  world — so  is  the  confusion  in  my 
family.” 


15 


226 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


To  remedy  this  confusion,  Pitt  now  took  stringent 
measures.  His  younger  children  were  to  be  removed 
from  the  guardianship  of  mother  and  brother,  and 
transferred  to  that  of  Mr.  Curgenven  and  George 
Pitt  of  Strathfieldsaye.  The  sons  were  to  choose 
some  profession,  and  “  busk  for  their  bread  or  starve.” 
The  governor’s  original  instructions  to  his  wife  had 
been  to  spare  no  expense  on  his  daughters’  education  ; 
if  she  attempted  to  obey  him  in  this  one  point,  he 
never  had  his  money’s  worth.  The  few  letters  from 
Miss  Essex  Pitt  that  have  been  preserved  are 
singularly  ill-spelt,  and  betray  a  deplorable  ignorance 
of  the  elements  of  English  grammar.  No  more 
money  was  to  be  wasted  upon  them  henceforth, 
but  they  were  to  be  “  married  off  ”  as  speedily  as 
possible  to  any  one  who  was  willing  to  have  a 
bride  with  a  portion  of  £6,000.  As  for  Mrs.  Pitt, 
she  was  to  be  offered  £100  a  year  to  retire  into 
private  life,  and  give  up  all  attempts  at  interfering 
with  her  husband’s  concerns ;  if  this  would  not 
content  her,  she  might  have  £200,  but  no  more. 

Mr.  Curgenven’s  blindness  prevented  him  from 
taking  any  active  part  in  the  business,  and  he  must 
almost  have  blessed  his  affliction  when  he  thought 
of  the  troubles  in  which  he  would  otherwise  have 
been  involved.  His  colleague,  Mr.  George  Pitt, 
was  both  sensible  and  kind  ;  it  was  easier  for  him, 
as  a  distant  relation  whose  interests  were  in  no  way 
affected,  to  exercise  some  control  over  the  disputants 
than  it  had  been  for  Robert,  and  he  succeeded,  not 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


227 


in  making  peace,  which  would  have  been  a  task 
beyond  human  skill,  but  in  keeping  their  feuds 
within  decent  bounds. 

Before  any  of  Robert’s  deprecatory  letters  could 
reach  him,  the  governor  relented  sufficiently  to  send 
a  small  ring  as  a  present  to  his  grandchild  and 
goddaughter,  little  “  Harriot,”  and  a  letter  to  her 
mother,  with  whom  he  sometimes  communicated  ; 
but  for  Robert  himself  he  had  no  word  of  kindness  : 

“  I  cannot  enough  lament  the  ill  state  of  my  family, 
and  wish  there  had  not  been  such  ignominious  actions 
done  by  any  of  you  as  never  can  be  obliterated  ; 
and  will  not  only  pull  down  the  vengeance  of  God 
Almighty,  but  the  daily  curses  of  an  abused  and 
injured  father.” 

To  a  plea  of  illness  from  Robert  he  makes  the 
gracious  rejoinder  : 

“  I  wish  those  sore  eyes  of  yours  did  not  come 
by  drinking,  and  that  generally  ushers  in  gaming, 
of  either  of  which  vices  or  any  other  dishonourable 
action  if  I  find  you  guilty,  you  may  be  assured  I 
will  give  you  no  quarter.” 

Whether  it  was  in  buying  a  commission  for  one 
brother,  or  in  burying  the  other,  Robert  was  equally 
to  blame  : 

“  Friends  inform  me  that  my  son  Robin  has  bought 
his  brother  Thomas  the  employ  of  a  Captain  of 
Horse  in  Ireland,  that  he  gave  £1,200  for  it,  being 
much  more  than  it  is  worth,  and  that  the  equipment 
cost  £300  more.  .  .  .  Doubtless  it  must  be  sufficient 


228 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


to  support  my  son  Thomas,  therefore  I  positively 
order  that  you  pay  him  not  a  penny  more  of  my 
money,  nor  shall  he  ever  have  any  more  without 
he  well  deserves  it.  I  am  surprised  at  the  extravagant 
funeral  of  my  son  William,  for  I  should  have  thought 
that  half  the  sum  charged  would  have  buried  all 
my  family.” 

Officious  friends,  whether  through  the  natural 
stupidity  of  their  kind  or  through  malice  prepense, 
did  all  they  could  to  make  matters  worse  by  send¬ 
ing  gossip  and  tittle-tattle  out  to  Fort  St.  George. 
There  never  yet  was  a  family  quarrel  but  the  assist¬ 
ance  of  conscientious  friends  made  it  ten  times 
worse,  if  it  did  not  originally  cause  it.  One  report 
which  Pitt  mentions,  that  Robert  ill-treated  his  wife, 
is  scarcely  likely  to  have  been  true.  It  is  difficult 
to  believe  that  she  can  have  been  very  happy  with 
a  husband  who  inherited  the  dispositions  of  both 
his  parents ;  but  there  is  evidence  that  he  loved  her, 
after  his  fashion,  and  recognised  his  good-fortune 
in  marrying  her. 

An  exception  to  the  majority  of  Pitt’s  acquaint¬ 
ance  was  Colonel  John  Wyndham,  who  wrote  to 
assure  him  of  Robert’s  good  behaviour  :  “  My  brother 
Wadham,  who  is  a  good  judge,  takes  often  occasion 
tot  applaud  his  management  both  in  economy  and 
business  of  trade.”  Robert  wrote  to  explain  that 
finding  the  commission  in  the  troop  of  Irish  horse 
too  expensive,  he  had  not  purchased  it  for  Thomas, 
and  was  profuse  in  explanations  and  apologies. 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


229 


Somewhat  appeased,  the  governor  wrote  exhortations 
to  Robert  to  avoid  extravagance,  but  to  live  “  hand¬ 
some  and  reputable,”  and  gave  him  leave  to  advance 
.£100  to  Thomas — “for  I  would  not  have  him  so 
necessitated  as  to  put  him  upon  doing  ill  things, 
or  appear  shabby,”  and  solemnly  conjured  him  to 
live  lovingly  with  all  and  have  “  none  of  these 
heathenish  and  hellish  doings  as  formerly.”  In 
earnest  of  what  he  would  do  to  reward  good  conduct 
(there  is  a  pleasing  flavour  about  the  transaction 
as  if  it  had  taken  place  at  Mrs.  Kilner’s  “  Village 
School,”  where  Mrs.  Bell  gave  Master  Bill  Crafty 
“  an  apple  and  a  biscuit  to  encourage  him  to  be 
good  ”)  the  governor  sent  pieces  of  gold  and  silver 
tissue  to  Mrs.  Robert  Pitt,  Essex,  and  Lucy,  as 
well  as  casks  of  arrack  and  mangoes  to  be  distributed 
among  friends.  Whether  moved  by  this  generosity 
or  by  their  father’s  exhortations,  in  February,  1708, 
all  the  children  of  Governor  Pitt  signed  a  joint 
letter  to  their  father,  expressing  sorrow  for  their 
unnatural  discords  and  a  resolution  to  live  in 
harmony  for  the  future. 

Such  a  state  of  things  was  too  good  to  last,  and 
Mrs.  Pitt  was  the  first  to  show  signs  of  restlessness. 
In  a  mysterious  letter  to  her  eldest  son  she  expresses 
her  satisfaction  that  his  father  has  promised  to  do 
something  for  him,  complains  of  the  smallness  of 
her  daughters’  allowances,  and  expresses  her  intention 
of  marrying  them  well.  As  for  her  own  affairs, 
“Your  father’s  generous  allowance  to  me  will  serve 


230 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


to  pay  rent,  and  for  the  rest  he  shall  find  I  can 
live  upon  the  air  as  well  and  better  than  ever  I 
did  in  my  life,  for  I  won’t  disgrace  him  by  living 
meanly  no  longer  ;  and  since  he  don’t  know  what 
is  fit  for  me  to  have  and  do,  he  will  know  that  I 
do.”  The  letter  continues  in  the  same  strain  for 
several  involved  sentences,  and  has  been  endorsed 
by  Robert :  “  My  mother’s  letter  about  her  power 
to  embroil  my  father’s  affairs.” 

The  governor  by  this  time  was  in  the  thick  of 
the  disputes  with  the  council  in  the  fort  and  the 
directors  in  London,  which  were  to  end  in  his  recall. 
It  is  impossible  to  give  the  details  here,  but  it  may 
be  said  that,  although  Pitt  was  arbitrary  and  wilful, 
his  judgment  in  matters  of  business  was  seldom  at 
fault,  and  that  he  left  the  Company’s  trade  in  far 
better  condition  than  he  found  it.  He  lacked  a 
conciliatory  manner,  and  the  climate  was  not  likely 
to  develop  suavity  and  urbanity  in  him  or  in  his 
council.  A  very  heated  dispute  was  caused  by 
their  refusal  to  conform  to  the  old  custom  of  going 
to  church  with  him  on  Sundays,  and  they  were 
in  no  better  accord  on  more  important  questions. 
Among  the  directors  at  home  a  party  had  gained 
the  ascendant  that  was  hostile  to  Pitt,  and  the 
governor,  overworked  and  in  great  anxiety,  was 
ready  to  lay  the  blame  of  everything  that  was  amiss 
upon  Robert’s  negligence  in  informing  him  of  what 
passed  at  the  East  India  House.  “  Since  you  left 
here,”  he  demanded,  half  plaintively,  half  indignantly, 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


231 


“have  you  given  me  a  plenary  account  of  any 
particular  affair,  ever  sent  me  a  collection  of  public 
news,  or  one  book  of  esteem,  or  as  much  as  one 
drop  of  curious  liquor,  or  anything  else  delightful  in 
these  parts  ?  ” 

The  arrival  of  the  letter  from  his  children  soothed 
him  to  a  certain  extent,  and  he  forthwith  gave 
George  Pitt  power  to  augment  their  allowances  at 
his  discretion.  Mrs.  Robert  Pitt,  who  had  lately 
been  prevented  from  writing  to  her  father-in-law,  as 
she  intended,  by  the  sudden  arrival  into  the  world 
of  a  son  (William,  Earl  of  Chatham),  was  presented 
with  a  coat,  sash,  and  girdle,  and  a  chintz  bed,  “  all 
the  finest  procurable,”  which  had  been  sent  to  Pitt 
by  Shah  Alum,  son  of  Aurungzebe.  To  his  little 
goddaughter  Pitt  sent  a  delightful  plaything — 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  “  little  coffree  boy,” 
who  must  have  caused  as  much  trouble  in  her 
father’s  household  as  the  monkeys  which  the  fine 
ladies  of  that  time  were  accustomed  to  keep  as 
pets. 

In  January,  1709,  the  board  of  directors  in  England 
decided  to  recall  Pitt,  the  immediate  cause  of  their 
displeasure  being  his  conduct  during  the  caste  riots 
in  Madras,  in  which  he  supported  one  faction  and 
a  Mr.  Fraser,  his  particular  enemy,  the  other.  Pitt 
had  been  carrying  matters  with  too  high  a  hand, 
as  even  his  friends  were  obliged  to  admit,  and  his 
threat  to  horsewhip  and  hang  Mr.  Fraser,  after 
one  of  their  differences  of  opinion,  could  not  be 


232  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

justified.  So  far  apart  were  India  and  England 
that  the  recall,  sent  from  England  in  January,  did 
not  reach  Fort  St.  George  until  the  evening  of 
September  17th. 

The  next  morning  was  Sunday  ;  but  Pitt  summoned 
the  council,  handed  over  his  accounts  and  papers, 
challenged  them  to  produce  a  single  instance  of 
injustice  committed  by  him  during  his  administra¬ 
tion,  and  by  eight  o’clock  in  the  morning  had  sur¬ 
rendered  his  charge  to  Mr.  Addison,  the  successor 
appointed  by  the  board.  Addison,  already  in  a 
bad  state  of  health,  was  completely  overcome  by 
his  position.  He  avowed  his  intention  of  following 
Pitt’s  policy,  but  was  immediately  taken  so  ill  that 
he  could  do  nothing.  Pitt,  who  went  to  see  him, 
declares  that  the  unhappy  man  believed  himself  to 
have  been  poisoned  by  some  member  of  the  “  Right- 
hand  Caste”  (the  faction  befriended  by  Fraser)  in 
order  to  make  room  for  “  that  wicked  and  vilest  of 
wretches.”  Any  one  who  knows  the  propensity  of 
some  of  the  natives  of  India  to  mingle  ground  glass 
and  other  unwholesome  ingredients  with  the  food 
and  liquor  of  those  to  whom  they  have  taken  a 
dislike  will  not  dismiss  the  idea  as  impossible. 
“The  poor  man,  few  days  after,  died,  and  in  such 
confusion  and  agonies  that  I  have  not  seen  the 
like,”  Pitt  declared ;  and  in  his  long  residence  in 
Madras  he  must  have  seen  many  writhing  in  the 
last  agonies  of  cholera  or  fever.  The  funeral  delayed 
Pitt’s  departure  for  three  days.  On  October  21st 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


233 


he  quitted  Madras  for  ever,  leaving  Fraser  practically 
master  of  the  situation. 

#  * 

# 

The  likelihood  of  being  captured  by  the  French 
made  Pitt  leave  his  ship  at  the  Cape  and  come 
home  by  a  Danish  vessel,  which  took  him  to  Bergen. 
Thence  he  wrote  a  peremptory  letter  to  his  executors 
in  London  stating  that  his  daughters  had  chosen 
to  disobey  him  (apparently  by  declining  to  live  with 
the  guardians  whom  he  had  appointed)  ;  “  therefore 
I  desire  that  you  pay  each  of  them  quarterly,  the 
mother  and  two  daughters,  twelve  pounds,  ten  shillings, 
and  no  more  will  I  allow  them  whilst  I  live,  and  I 
have  made  the  same  provision  for  them  in  my  will ; 
and  for  fortunes  I  will  not  give  them  a  penny 
unless  my  cousin  Pitt  has  gone  so  far  as  to  engage 
his  honour  in  a  match,  then  that  must  and  shall 
be  made  good.” 

This  was  a  hopeful  augury  of  what  might  be 
expected  on  the  governor’s  arrival.  George  Pitt 
now  came  forward  and  behaved  with  real  kindness 
and  wisdom.  He  wrote  at  once  to  Pitt,  trying  to 
give  as  good  an  aspect  as  possible  to  the  condition 
of  his  family,  and  succeeded  in  drawing  a  letter 
from  him  in  a  milder  strain.  He  then  wrote  to 
Essex  and  Lucy,  reminding  them  how  he  had 
cautioned  them  against  disobedience,  and  advising 
them  to  take  advantage  of  their  father’s  relenting 
mood,  return  to  their  brother,  and  keep  upon  good 


234 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


terms  with  him  until  Pitt’s  arrival.  “  The  harmony 
your  father  will  find  amongst  you  will  contribute 
more  to  the  healing  the  unhappy  differences  that 
have  been  in  your  family  than  all  the  endeavours 
of  your  friends  together.” 

Essex  and  Lucy  seemingly  took  this  advice  to 
heart,  for  we  find  the  former  keeping  up  a  familiar 
correspondence  with  her  sister-in-law.  In  spite  of 
the  £6,000  portion  offered  with  them,  neither  had 
succeeded  as  yet  in  getting  a  husband  ;  but  then, 
as  one  of  their  father’s  correspondents  had  despond- 
ingly  informed  him,  “  Men  of  estates  are  scarce 
and  women  plenty,  so  that  they  do  not  easily  go 
off  without  a  great  deal  of  money,  though  they  be 
never  so  virtuous  and  pretty.”  Essex  was  quite 
ready  to  be  married,  as  may  be  seen  from  a  passage 
in  one  of  her  letters,  given  here  with  its  original 
spelling:  “We  go  to  Mr  Bartmansemmer’s  very 
ofone,  and  are  very  much  in  his  favor.  I  was  in 
hopes  of  gitting  of  him  at  one  time,  but,  the  other 
day,  I  was  strock  dead  all  at  once,  for  he  told  me 
he  never  desind  to  marry.”  She  did  ultimately  find 
a  husband  in  Mr.  Cholmondeley,  of  Vale  Royal, 
while  Lucy  became  the  wife  of  General  (afterwards 
Earl)  Stanhope. 

There  is  a  disappointing  lack  of  information 
about  the  governor’s  return  to  his  family  and  his 
proceedings  during  the  next  few  years.  He  reached 
England  in  17 u,  and  was  graciously  pleased  to 
show  satisfaction  with  his  daughter-in-law,  whom 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


235 


he  received  as  a  guest  in  his  house,  and  whose 
children  became  great  favourites  with  him.  It  does 
not  appear  that  he  made  any  attempt  to  see  his 
wife  or  held  any  communication  with  her. 

After  his  treatment  by  the  directors  he  would 
have  no  more  to  do  with  the  East  India  House, 
and  transferred  his  energies  to  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons,  where  he  sat  as  Member  for  Old  Sarum.  An 
uncompromising  Whig,  a  zealous  upholder  of  the 
Protestant  faith  and  the  Hanoverian  succession, 
he  considered  the  rest  of  the  world  deplorably  lax, 
if  not  actually  seditious,  and  had  no  hesitation  in 
avowing  his  opinions.  In  April,  1714,  when  the 
House  was  passing  an  address  to  the  queen,  we 
have  a  glimpse  of  the  fiery  old  nabob  from  a 
record  in  a  contemporary  diary.  “  Governor  Pits  ” 
declared  himself  against  every  part  of  the  address, 
and  maintained  that  our  one  aim  should  be  to 
weaken  and  humiliate  France  as  much  as  possible. 
To  effect  this  object  he  moved  that  an  address 
should  forthwith  be  sent  to  the  queen,  humbly 
begging  her  majesty  to  lend  her  present  Ministry 
to  the  king  of  France,  to  govern  his  country  for 
him  for  the  space  of  three  years,  at  the  end  of 
which  time  it  was  certain  to  be  reduced  by  their 
management  to  as  miserable  a  state  as  any  English 
heart  could  wish. 

Robert  was  of  another  mould,  either  with  leanings 
towards  the  opposite  party  or  without  his  father’s 
zeal,  and  many  were  the  ratings  which  he  had  to 


236 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


endure  on  his  political  sins  from  the  time  of  his 
first  election  to  Parliament.  His  dissatisfaction  with 
the  state  of  public  affairs  led  him  to  absent  himself 
from  the  House  ;  but  in  the  governor’s  opinion  this 
was  little  better  than  voting  with  the  Tories,  and 
voting  with  the  Tories  meant  combining  with  those 
who  were  “contriving  to  put  a  French  kickshaw 
on  the  throne  again.”  To  Pitt,  the  “  Pretender  ” 
seemed  always  in  wait  to  achieve  England’s  downfall, 
playing  the  part  of  bogey  filled  to  later  generations 
of  Englishmen  by  Napoleon  Buonaparte  or  the 
Church  of  Rome. 

Robert’s  indifference  to  the  welfare  of  his  country, 
even  after  he  had  been  appointed  clerk  of  the  Green 
Cloth  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  in  1715,  with  a  salary 
of  ^500  a  year,  and  very  little  to  do  for  it,  was 
a  continual  grievance  with  his  father.  When  the 
Jacobite  insurrection  broke  out,  Pitt  waxed  almost 
hysterical,  and  a  supposed  plot  to  murder  the  Royal 
Family  and  their  adherents — to  which  he  imagined 
himself  likely  to  have  fallen  a  victim — gave  him  an 
opportunity  of  pointing  {a.  moral  which  he  did  not 
let  slip.  “  Since  last  post  I  have  had  it  reiterated 
to  me  that  in  all  company  you  are  vindicating 
Ormonde  and  Bolingbroke,  the  two  vilest  rebels 
that  ever  were  in  any  nation,  and  that  you  still 
adhere  to  your  cursed  Tory  principles,  and  keep 
those  wretches  company  who  hoped  by  this  time 
to  have  murthered  the  whole  royal  family  ;  in  which 
catastrophe  your  father  was  sure  to  fall,  as  was 


AN  ILL'MATCHED  COUPLE. 


237 


certainly  designed  at  the  signing  those  bonds,  and 
to  have  taken  possession  of  my  house  and  all  that 
could  be  found  therein  ;  never  a  viler  man  in  the 
world,  and  the  same  stamp  all  your  acquaintance.” 
After  delivering  himself  of  this  incoherent  but 
emphatic  abuse,  the  old  gentleman  made  arrange¬ 
ments  for  inviting  his  grandchildren  to  dinner,  and 
wrote  two  days  later  to  assure  their  delinquent 
father  that  they  were  well. 

Shortly  afterwards  we  find  the  whole  family  once 
more  engaged  in  a  violent  quarrel,  Robert  being  the 
chief  offender.  It  is  impossible  to  trace  the  causes, 
which  were  probably  unknown  to  the  disputants 
themselves.  The  first  threatenings  of  the  storm 
were  heard  when  Robert,  who  had  offended  his 
father  by  his  remissness  in  attendance  at  Court, 
proposed  coming  up  to  town  from  Stratford,  and 
was  told,  “You  may  stay  in  the  country  or  come; 
it  is  all  one  to  me.”  Then  Robert  refused  to  take 
any  notice  of  his  sister’s  child  when  it  was  carried 
into  the  room  by  its  devoted  grandfather,  or  to  go 
and  see  his  sister  (apparently  Lucy  Stanhope),  with 
whom  he  was  not  on  good  terms.  The  governor’s 
displeasure  was  sedulously  increased  by  the  other 
members  of  his  family.  Lady  Grandison,  and  her 
second  husband,  General  Stewart,  who  happened  to 
be  in  town,  did  the  best  they  could  for  Robert,  and 
finding  that  the  old  man  declined  to  listen  to  them — 
or,  as  the  General  phrases  it,  “  industriously  waved  ” 
any  conversation  on  the  subject,  Lady  Grandison 


238 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


sent  for  the  indefatigable  George  Pitt.  If  ever  any 
man  earned  the  blessing  of  the  peacemakers,  and 
earned  it  hardly,  that  man  was  the  “  able,  honest  ” 
cousin  whom  the  governor  had  made  his  executor. 

Letters  written  by  Robert  and  carefully  revised 
by  General  Stewart  and  George  Pitt  did  nothing 
to  soften  the  governor,  who  at  the  same  time  was 
busy  petting  and  spoiling  Robert’s  children,  dressing 
out  the  girls  in  fine  clothes  with  the  help  of  Mrs. 
Cholmondeley,  who  on  this  occasion  acted  with  “  great 
care  and  kindness.”  Poor  Mrs.  Robert  Pitt  wrote 
to  her  father-in-law,  and  received  for  answer  much 
abuse  of  Robert  and  an  intimation  that  no  letters 
from  him  would  in  future  be  answered  by  his  father. 
A  few  months  previously  the  governor  had  been 
pathetically  complaining  that  writing  was  not  so 
much  his  talent  as  formerly,  and  that  it  was  all  he 
could  do  to  write  what  was  absolutely  necessary. 
He  did  himself  an  injustice.  If  his  later  letters  are 
more  brief  than  those  sent  from  Fort  St.  George, 
they  are  quite  as  spirited. 

Shortly  afterwards  the  old  gentleman  could  not 
refrain  from  letting  his  son  know  that  he  had  kissed 
hands  on  his  appointment  as  Governor  of  Jamaica 
and  that  Mrs.  Cholmondeley  had  given  birth  to  a 
daughter.  Mrs.  Robert  Pitt  ventured  to  send  her 
congratulations,  and  received  the  following  reply  : 

“  I  received  yours  of  the  28th  last  month,  and 
had  you  enclosed  it  in  your  husband’s,  it  would 
have  saved  me  fivepence.  I  thank  you  for  your 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


239 


congratulations  of  my  daughter  being  safe,  and  wish 
there  was  a  better  harmony  in  my  family  than  at 
present  is,  or  as  far  as  I  see,  like  to  be  ;  and  that 
some,  of  late,  had  not  given  me  just  cause  to  revive 
my  resentments.  I  know  not  by  whose  advice  you 
have  acted,  nor  your  husband  who  never  followed 
mine.  I  am  busy  night  and  day  to  prepare  for  my 
departure,  being  what  I  most  long  to  see.” 

Other  letters  follow  in  the  same  strain,  reiterating 
his  weariness  of  the  quarrels  at  home  and  his  wish 
to  “  seek  quiet  ”  and  forget  his  troubles  in  some 
foreign  country.  Yet,  after  all,  the  old  man  did 
not  go  to  Jamaica.  Unexpectedly  the  Regent 
Orleans  took  a  fancy  to  have  the  great  diamond, 
and  after  much  chaffering,  in  which  John  Law,  the 
notorious  adventurer,  took  part,  and  much  anxiety 
on  the  journey  with  it  to  France,  owing  to  a  con¬ 
viction  that  innkeepers,  fellow-travellers,  and  other 
harmless  persons  were  plotting  to  rob  him  of  the 
jewel,  Pitt  disposed  of  his  “  grand  concern  ”  for 
£125,000.*  Thereupon  he  resigned  the  Governorship 
of  Jamaica,  bought  several  estates,  including  that  of 
Boconnoc,  in  Cornwall,  and  disposed  himself  to  end 
his  days  at  home. 

Again  there  was  an  interval  of  comparative  peace. 
The  king  and  the  Prince  of  Wales  at  this  time 
set  an  example  to  their  subjects  by  becoming 
reconciled,  to  the  great  joy  “  of  all  that  love  old 

*  The  Regent  agreed  to  pay  £130,000,  £5,000  of  which  was 
given  to  Mr.  Law  as  his  fee  for  managing  the  transaction. 


240 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


England,”  as  Pitt  wrote  to  his  son.  Even  the 
elder  Mrs.  Pitt  was  moved  by  this  touching  ex¬ 
hibition  of  right  feeling,  and  adjured  Robert  to 
“  go  and  do  likewise  ”  by  making  friends  with  his 
brother  Thomas,  who  had  been  raised  to  the  Irish 
peerage  as  Lord  Londonderry.  “You  see  when 
eyes  are  open  and  malicious  stories  set  in  a  true 
light  what  vast  alterations  it  makes  in  opinions,” 
concludes  the  old  lady,  when  writing  a  full  account 
of  the  prince’s  excellent  behaviour  to  her  daughter- 
in-law,  “which,  I  pray  God,  give  us  all  grace  and 
humility  to  consider  as  we  ought.”  It  was  an 
unwonted  thing  for  the  elder  Mrs.  Pitt  to  preach 
peace  and  good-will,  but  she  was  remarkably  gracious 
to  her  eldest  son  and  his  wife  at  this  time,  entreating 
them  to  come  to  Bath,  as  lodgings  were  cheap  on 
account  of  the  fall  of  South  Sea  stock.  The  crisis 
in  finance  had  caused  a  general  depression,  she 
said,  and  people  were  too  downhearted  even  to 
talk  scandal,  and  the  wits,  for  want  of  encourage¬ 
ment,  had  ceased  their  usual  chatter,  so  that  Bath 
was  more  agreeable  than  she  had  ever  known  it. 

It  was  only  a  temporary  improvement.  A  few  years 
later,  Henrietta,  Countess  of  Suffolk,  went  to  take 
the  Bath  waters,  and  wrote  to  Robert  Pitt’s  daughter, 
Anne,  then  maid-of-honour  to  Queen  Caroline  : 
“  I  'must  say  this  in  praise  of  the  waters,  that  they 
create  a  great  benevolence  of  temper  in  public ; 
but  as  I  am  famous  for  my  penetration,  I  have 
discovered  that  [after  taking  them]  there  issues  a 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


241 


sharp  humour  that  can  be  discharged  only  at  the 
tongue  and  into  the  ear  of  their  next  neighbour.” 

There  were  a  few  trifling  breezes,  ever  and  anon, 
to  disturb  the  family  harmony.  Robert  Pitt,  having 
been  induced  by  his  father,  sorely  against  his  will, 
to  stand  for  Oakhampton,  incurred  a  bill  for  election 
expenses  which  caused  the  old  gentleman  to  “  swear 
most  heartily.”  Then  Robert  wished  to  undergo 
a  course  of  medical  treatment  at  Bath  and  Bristol, 
and  his  father  was  disappointed  that  little  Harriet 
was  not  allowed  to  winter  with  him  while  her 
parents  travelled  from  place  to  place  in  search 
of  the  health  that  Robert  was  never  to  find. 
Apparently  Robert  had  wished  his  father  to  accom¬ 
modate  more  of  the  family,  and,  being  disappointed 
in  this,  declined  to  part  with  “  Heriot,”  alleging 
that  he  knew  she  would  not  have  been  welcome 
in  Pitt’s  house  :  “  I  wish  you  would  in  your  next 
write  plain  who  it  is  that  you  mean  Heriot  would 
not  have  been  welcome  to,”  writes  the  injured 
grandfather,  forgetting  his  grammar  in  his  disap¬ 
pointment.  On  a  previous  occasion  he  had  been 
very  angry  with  Robert  for  turning  his  mother 
and  sisters  out  of  the  house ;  “  it  was  very  hard 
you  could  not  spare  them  one  story.  I  should 
have  done  it  to  your  wife  and  children  had  they 
been  twice  as  many.”  Now,  forgetting  this,  he 
impressed  upon  Robert  the  fact  that  “  my  family 
is  so  numerous  that  I  cannot  have  reasonable  con- 
veniency  for  them  all,  nor  will  I  ever  make  myself 

16 


242 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


uneasy  in  any  of  my  houses  to  accommodate  any 
of  my  family.” 

The  grandchildren  were  the  chief  bond  between 
the  governor  and  his  eldest  son.  The  old  man 
loved  to  carry  off  the  boys  “and  some  of  their 
comrogues  ”  from  Eton  to  spend  a  few  days  at 
Swallowfield  with  him  ;  and  when  little  Katy  Pitt 
wanted  to  learn  geography  it  was  to  her  grandfather, 
not  to  her  father,  that  she  applied.  After  the 
governor’s  death  his  partiality  for  his  grandson  and 
namesake  Thomas  was  made  a  grievance  against 
Thomas  by  Robert. 

In  February,  1723,  Lady  Stanhope  died,  and  from 
that  time  her  father  began  visibly  to  break.  He 
was  left  guardian  to  her  children,  Earl  Stanhope 
being  already  dead,  and  he  found  the  trouble  of 
looking  after  them  and  putting  them  to  suitable 
schools  more  than  he  could  well  endure.  The  last 
few  years  of  his  life  are  a  melancholy  record.  His 
health  gone,  his  temper  become  a  curse  to  himself 
and  all  around  him,  lonely  in  spite  of  his  large 
family,  too  ill  to  attend  properly  to  his  own  business, 
but  firmly  convinced  that  no  one  could  be  trusted 
to  take  it  off  his  hands,  life  held  nothing  worth 
having  for  the  rich  and  prosperous  nabob.  Sus¬ 
picious  of  plots  of  every  kind,  certain  that  he  was 
going  to  be  ruined,  he  dragged  out  the  remnant 
of  his  days.  A  cousin,  Henry  Sutton,  one  of  the 
few  in  whom  he  still  reposed  some  confidence,  wrote 
to  Robert,  after  having  had  a  disagreement  with 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


243 


Colonel  John  Pitt,  “As  to  letting  the  Governor 
know  of  this,  I  am  sure  that  would  signify  nothing. 
I  must  expect  no  redress  from  him,  unless  I  could 
be  content  to  be  paid  in  curses  and  reproaches,  the 
usual  return  he  makes  his  best  servants  for  their 
fidelity  and  diligence.  He  is  grown  so  extraordinary 
humoursome  and  testy  now,  that  a  man  must  have 
better  luck  or  more  art  than  I  am  master  of,  who 
can  please  him  twice  together.”  There  were  sus¬ 
picions  that  Pitt  was  being  defrauded  by  a  wood¬ 
man  in  his  employ,  but  none  of  his  servants  durst 
tell  him,  “  because  the  Governor  is  so  passionate,” 
pleaded  one  of  them  in  excuse  to  Robert.  Sutton, 
sent  down  to  Boconnoc,  could  not  think  that  the 
governor  had  been  cheated  “  in  the  manner  those 
informers  would  make  him  believe,”  and  came  to  the 
wise  resolution  to  let  Robert  know  of  those  things 
which  “  ought  to  be  animadverted,”  and  to  arrange 
with  him  whether  the  governor  should  be  told 
of  them  ;  “  for  since  every  trifle  gives  him  such 
uneasiness  and  puts  him  into  an  heat,  we  ought 
to  be  the  more  cautious  in  writing  for  the  sake  of 
his  quiet  and  repose.” 

The  old  man  was  fast  breaking  down  ;  he  com¬ 
plained  that  the  journey  to  London  tired  him 
almost  to  death,  and  that  he  declined  very  much, 
and  “  was  trying  to  do  all  the  good  he  could  whilst 
living.”  He  even  goes  so  far  as  frequently  to 
express  regret  at  his  son’s  bad  health,  in  which  he 
had  hitherto  expressed  a  scornful  disbelief,  and  once 


244 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


sends  him  “  an  unquestionable  receipt  ”  against  one 
of  his  maladies.  His  heart  was  aching  for  a  little 
tenderness,  and  there  was  none  to  give  it.  “  I  shall 
be  ready  to  assist  your  son  Thomas  in  his  improve¬ 
ments  and  education  abroad.  Your  son  William  is 
a  hopeful  lad,  and  [I]  doubt  not  but  he  will  answer 
yours’  and  all  his  friends’  expectations,”  Cruelly 
disappointed  in  his  children,  his  hopes  were  all 
transferred  to  the  younger  generation.  One  may 
well  imagine  how  he  would  have  gloried  in  the 
triumphs  of  his  grandson  and  applauded  his 
denunciations  of  France,  the  hereditary  enemy  ;  but 
at  the  time  of  his  grandfather’s  death  the  future 
Lord  Chatham  was  not  eighteen. 

In  January,  1726,  died  Lady  Grandison,  and  after 
three  days’  lying-in-state  was  deposited  in  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham’s  vault  in  Westminster  Abbey  (the 
General,  her  husband,  sparing  no  expense),  “  with 
four  dukes  for  pall-bearers  and  eight  earls  assistant.” 
“  All  that  were  her  friends  are  glad  she  is  out  of 
this  world,”  wrote  Pitt.  Perhaps  he  was  thinking 
of  himself,  for  he  might  truly  have  said  : 

“  There’s  neither  friend  nor  foe  of  mine 
But  wishes  I  were  away.” 

His  old  friend  Sir  Thomas  Hardy  often  visited 
him  in  town  and  sent  reports  to  Robert,  whose  health 
detained  him  in  Bath.  Colonel  John  Pitt  was  with 
his  father,  “  so  that  we  are  all  very  happy  if  the 
keys  were  not  carried  to  the  old  gentleman’s  bedside 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


245 


at  ten  o’clock  every  night,  so  that  there  is  no  going  to 
the  masquerade  next  Thursday  night  without  leave.” 

In  March,  Hardy  writes  that  the  old  gentleman 
has  been  ill,  but  is  now  pretty  well,  and  although 
complaining  much  of  “  want  of  stomach  ”  eats  more 
than  Hardy  himself. 

The  end  came  suddenly,  as  often  happens  in  such 
a  case.  After  two  days’  illness,  Thomas  Pitt  died 
at  Swallowfield,  at  the  end  of  April,  1726.  He  was 
not  much  over  seventy,  but  his  life  had  held  much 
hard  work  in  a  dangerous  climate,  and  very  little 
pleasure  or  contentment.  He  had  made  the  East 
India  Company  “vastly  rich,  and  famous  through¬ 
out  those  parts  of  the  world  for  honourable  and 
just  dealings.”  He  had  amassed  a  great  fortune,  he 
had  owned  the  largest  diamond  then  known  to  the 
world,  and  he  had  gained  nothing  save  trouble  and 
vexation  for  himself.  He  had  been  a  faithful  servant 
to  his  Company  (after  his  “  pyrott  ”  days  were 
over) — a  wise  and  kindly  friend  to  needy  and  dis¬ 
tressed  kinsfolk  and  acquaintance ;  but  there  is  no 
sign  that  he  ever  received  much  gratitude  for  it. 
Like  Rob  Roy,  “  he  was  a  hedge  unto  his  friends, 
a  heckle  to  his  foes  ”  ;  but  his  friends,  on  a  sudden 
change  in  his  humour,  often  found  themselves 
“  heckled,”  and  in  their  resentment  forgot  all  his 
benefits. 

After  his  death  his  family  were  plunged  into 
indecent  quarrels  over  the  provisions  of  his  will,  in 
which  it  would  be  fruitless  to  follow  them.  Robert 


246  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

forbids  his  eldest  son,  Thomas,  to  hold  any  corre¬ 
spondence  with  his  uncles,  on  account  of  their  “  un¬ 
toward  behaviour.”  Thomas  was  left  a  handsome 
annuity  until  he  should  succeed  to  the  estate,  which 
can  have  given  him  little  satisfaction,  since  his  father 
took  it  as  a  grievance,  suddenly  and  capriciously 
withdrew  his  allowance,  rated  him  for  extravagance, 
for  negligence  in  writing,  and  for  everything  that 
he  did  or  omitted  to  do,  in  a  strain  that  recalls 
Governor  Pitt — with  this  difference :  old  Pitt’s 
wrath  was  like  the  full  overflowing  of  a  torrent, 
sweeping  all  before  it ;  Robert’s  peevish  displeasure 
resembled  nothing  so  much  as  the  perpetual  fretful 
trickle  of  an  ill-fitting  tap. 

There  is  no  sign  that  Governor  Pitt  ever  sought 
reconciliation  with  his  wife  or  held  any  communica¬ 
tion  with  her  after  his  return  to  England.  So  strong 
was  his  resentment  that  all  his  estates  were  pur¬ 
chased  in  the  name  of  trustees  to  bar  her  claim 
for  dower.  The  annuity  of  £ 200  was  all  that  was 
secured  to  her  at  his  death.  She  must  have  had 
independent  means,  for  she  was  never  straitened 
for  money,  and  allowed  her  daughters  before  their 
marriages  to  spend  the  £200  for  pin-money. 

“  I  make  no  distinction  between  women  that  are 
reputed  ill,  and  such  as  are  actually  so,”  the  governor 
had  written  to  his  son  at  the  time  of  the  great 
quarrel  in  the  family  ;  “  wherefore  I  have  discarded 
and  renounced  your  mother  for  ever,  and  will  never 
see  her  more,  if  I  can  avoid  it.”  We  have  no  means 


AN  ILL-MATCHED  COUPLE. 


247 


of  knowing  whether  he  had  any  justification.  After 
taking  into  consideration  the  scandal-mongering 
prevalent  at  Bath,  the  kindness  and  tact  of  friends, 
and  Pitt’s  own  jealous,  suspicious  temper,  it  is  most 
probable  that  the  whole  story  (of  which  we  have  no 
details)  had  as  little  foundation  in  fact  as  many  of 
the  other  canards  that  reached  Madras.  Mrs.  Pitt’s 
letters  are  those  of  an  ill-tempered  woman,  but 
not  of  a  vicious  one,  and  if  she  had  really  been 
to  blame,  it  is  not  likely  that  Robert  would  have 
invited  her  to  his  house  or  allowed  her  to  associate 
and  correspond  with  his  wife.  But  she  came  of  a 
proud  race,  and  would  not  justify  herself ;  if  her 
husband  could  do  without  her,  she  could  do  without 
him.  He  kept  his  word,  and  she  kept  hers.  The 
shadows  lengthened,  the  good  things  which  each 
had  thought  to  enjoy  turned  to  dust  and  ashes, 
children  and  friends  were  swept  away,  but  husband 
and  wife  sat  apart,  alone  in  their  old  age.  Railing 
against  the  world  that  had  cheated  him,  the  old 
man  died  and  made  no  sign  ;  and  the  wife  from 
whom  he  had  been  separated  for  so  many  years 
could  not  survive  him.  In  nine  months  she  was 
dead,  and  the  comical,  pitiful,  sordid  tragedy  had 
been  brought  to  an  end.  Perhaps  in  another  world, 
before  each  goes  to  his  appointed  place,  there  may 
be  time  and  opportunity  for  the  explanations  which 
some  of  us  were  too  proud  to  offer  and  others  too 
angry  to  hear.  For  the  sake  of  such  as  Thomas  Pitt 
and  Jane  Innes,  we  may  hope  that  it  will  be  granted. 


VI. 

A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL 
OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

Ellenor  Frere 
(i b .  1713;  d.  1801). 

Ellenor  Frere  (Lady  Fenn) 

(b.  1744;  d.  1813). 


249 


VI. 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL 
OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 

MOST  of  the  women  whose  stories  have  already 
been  given  were  brought  into  prominence 
either  by  their  high  birth  or  by  the  stress  of  circum¬ 
stances.  One  is  sometimes  curious  to  know  what 
lives  were  led  by  those  who  stayed  quietly  at  home, 
far  from  the  splendour  of  a  court  or  the  terror  of 
a  battle  or  a  siege. 

In  turning  over  some  old  family  papers  which  the 
kindness  of  a  relative  had  placed  at  my  disposal,  I 
came  upon  the  story  of  two  women  of  a  bygone 
age — an  aunt  and  a  niece.  In  manners,  thoughts, 
and  habits  the  aunt  seems  parted  from  the  niece  by 
more  than  one  generation.  One  who  was  not  in  her 
first  youth  when  the  clans  were  gathering  round 
the  prince’s  standard  at  Glenfinnan,  and  had  heard 
“  the  King  over  the  water  ”  toasted  at  dinner,  be¬ 
longs  to  a  very  different  age  from  one  who  fought 
the  battle  of  education  with  Mrs.  More  and  Mrs. 
Trimmer.  Yet  the  aunt  lived  to  see  a  new  century, 
dying  in  1801  in  full  possession  of  her  wits  and  her 

251 


252  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

memory,  while  the  niece  survived  her  only  for  twelve 
years.  The  aunt,  although  wealthy  and  of  good 
family,  never  married,  and  lived  quietly  near  the 
home  of  her  youth,  occupying  herself  in  unostenta¬ 
tious  deeds  of  kindness  among  her  neighbours  of  all 
classes  ;  the  niece,  married  yet  childless,  also  lived 
among  her  own  people,  but  her  schemes  for  educating 
children  (and  their  parents),  or  for  enlarging  the 
sphere  of  female  labour  among  the  villagers,  closely 
resemble  those  of  a  philanthropic  lady  of  the  present 
day.  Both,  however,  were  fully  alive  to  that  precept 
of  the  Church  Catechism  (now  thought  degrading 
to  the  dignity  of  board-school  children,  but  then 
taught  to  rich  and  poor  alike) — to  do  their  duty  in 
that  state  of  life  unto  which  it  should  please  God 
to  call  them  ;  and  if  their  conception  of  duty  was 
not  always  in  accord  with  modern  scientific  and 
economic  methods,  their  intentions  were  none  the 
less  admirable.  Not  a  single  incident  which  is 
other  than  commonplace  can  be  recorded  of  either 
of  their  lives,  yet  there  is  some  interest  in  finding 
an  answer  to  the  question  which  some  of  us  must 
have  asked  over  and  over  again :  “  What  did  the 

women  do,  a  hundred  years  ago,  who  did  nothing 
in  particular?” 

Ellenor  Frere,  the  aunt,  was  born  in  1713.  Her 
home  at  Thwaite  Hall,  Suffolk,  with  a  devoted  father, 
mother,  and  brother,  must  have  been  unusually 
happy,  and  there  was  always  a  second  home  for  her 
in  the  house  in  London  where  lived  her  aunt,  the 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  253 


wife  of  Lord  Chief  Baron  Reynolds.  To  the  child¬ 
less  couple  “  Nelly  ”  was  as  a  daughter,  and  if  her 
position  as  an  only  daughter  with  but  one  brother 
may  have  been  solitary,  there  was  a  multitude  of 
cousins  on  her  father’s  side  who  were  delighted 
to  have  her  company  in  a  party  of  pleasure.  Her 
education  was  limited  in  range,  but  sound,  as 
was  then  the  fashion  for  young  ladies  who  were 
educated  at  all.  She  studied  history  and  divinity, 
and  made  copious  notes  in  quaint  little  books  with 
marbled  covers,  some  of  which  have  been  still 
preserved,  and  contain  information  about  every  con¬ 
ceivable  subject,  from  the  planets  to  the  cherubim, 
and  from  the  discovery  of  the  Bath  waters  by  Julius 
Caesar  to  the  exact  day  of  the  month  on  which 
Methuselah  died.  That  she  also  studied  French  is 
evident  from  a  letter  addressed  to  her  by  the  Lord 
Chief  Baron  himself,  beginning  and  ending  with 
formal  compliments  to  “  Monsieur  votre  pere,” 
“  Madame  votre  mere,”  and  “  L’Academicien,  votre 
fere.”  After  it  was  written,  her  “  tres-affectionne 
Oncle  et  tres-humble  Serviteur  ”  was  evidently  seized 
with  doubts  either  of  her  scholarship  or  of  his  own, 
for  he  gives  the  gist  of  his  letter  in  a  hasty  postscript : 
“If  you  will  be  so  good  as  to  order  my  bitch  (Dolly) 
to  be  sent  to  Tony  Brightwell  who  stays  for  that 
purpose  at  the  Buckshead,  you  may  decypher  my 
Letter  at  your  leisure.”  Her  writing  in  extreme 
old  age  was  very  tremulous,  and  her  punctuation 
conspicuous  by  its  absence  ;  but  her  note-books  are 


254 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


neatly  and  clearly  written,  presenting  no  difficulties 
to  the  reader,  and  her  spelling  is  above  the  average 
of  that  day. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  Ellenor  Frere  were 
beautiful.  She  steadily  resisted  all  entreaties  to  sit 
for  her  portrait,  and  the  only  likeness  preserved  of 
her  is  a  little  silhouette  caught  by  a  great-nephew 
when  fourscore  years  had  sharpened  her  nose  and 
chin,  and  the  loss  of  her  teeth  had  destroyed  the 
curve  of  that  “malicious  little  mouth’’  which  her 
admirers  once  found  so  charmingly  provoking.  She 
had  the  small-pox  at  the  age  of  fourteen  ;  it  does 
not  appear  whether  she  were  badly  marked,  but 
her  easy  recovery  was  the  cause  of  great  joy  and 
congratulation  to  her  mother.  It  is  difficult  for  us 
to  realise  what  a  continual  and  abiding  terror  the 
small-pox  was  to  an  unvaccinated  generation.  A 
girl’s  prospects — particularly  if  she  were  a  beauty — 
were  materially  affected  if  she  had  not  taken  the 
disease  before  coming  to  a  marriageable  age,  and 
careful  people  objected  to  engaging  a  servant  who 
had  never  had  it.  The  virtuous  heroine  of  the  novel 
of  the  period  nursed  lover,  relative,  or  enemy  through 
an  attack  of  the  small-pox  in  the  same  spirit  of 
desperate  self-sacrifice  in  which  her  modern  de¬ 
scendant  goes  to  live  at  a  mission-house  in  the  slums. 
The  precautions  taken  against  infection  were  childishly 
inadequate.  In  one  family — not  Ellenor’s — as  the 
members  recovered,  one  by  one,  they  were  sent  out 
for  airings  in  “  the  chariot,”  which  must  ever  afterwards 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  255 


have  distributed  the  disease  to  every  passenger. 
Inoculation  was  the  only  safeguard.  One  of  Ellenor’s 
note-books  records,  “  Inoculation,  one  in  fifty  die  ; 
natural  way,  one  in  six  die.”  But  inoculation  was 
sometimes  as  fatal  to  life  or  beauty  as  the  small-pox 
when  accidentally  taken,  and  was,  besides,  the  means 
of  introducing  the  complaint  into  neighbourhoods 
which  had  hitherto  been  free  from  it.  In  her  old 
age  Ellenor  writes  with  much  indignation  of  the 
conduct  of  an  acquaintance  who  has  chosen  to  have 
his  little  son  inoculated  at  a  time  when  the  whole 
neighbourhood  was  rejoicing  in  a  clean  bill  of  health. 
From  the  same  authority  we  learn  another  means 
by  which  the  infection  was  often  spread,  which  re¬ 
calls  one  of  Miss  Edgeworth’s  stories:  “A  young 
baggage  went  to  have  her  fortune  told  by  some 
gipsies  full  of  it,  went  about  with  it  into  almost 
every  house,”  and  in  consequence  Ellenor  decreed 
that  eight  or  nine  persons  living  “  in  my  lane  ”  should 
forthwith  be  inoculated. 

But  this  has  led  us  far  from  the  question  of 
Ellenor’s  good  looks.  From  the  different  corre¬ 
spondents  of  her  youth  we  gather  that  she  was 
“plump  as  a  Partridge,  tender  as  a  Chicking  [sic],” 
that — as  is  also  clear  from  her  own  letters — she  had 
“  good  sense,  wit,  and  humour,”  that  she  was  “  good- 
natured  and  obliging,”  and  “  had  the  art  of  pleasing.” 
With  all  these  good  qualities  it  is  not  wonderful 
that  she  was  welcome  wherever  she  went,  and  that 
her  aunt  and  uncle  were  anxious  for  her  company 


256 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


at  any  festivity  to  which  they  had  the  entree.  Thus 
it  was  that  “on  Saturday  the  2nd  of  February,  1734,” 
she  was  taken  to  “the  Revels  at  the  Temple.”  This, 
as  one  of  her  note-books  explains,  “  is  a  diversion 
which  never  happens  but  when  there  is  a  new 
Lord  Chancellor  made,  and  then  that  Society  to 
which  he  did  belong  compliments  him  with  an 
entertainment,  and  generaly  [sic]  a  very  expensive 
one  (as  indeed  was  this).  The  company  that  are 
allwais  invited  are  the  Royal  Family,  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  Judges,  and  Sergeants  of  the  Inn, 
Benchers,  and  Students,  the  Master  of  the  Temple 
(which  was  Dr  Sherlock,  Bishop  of  St  Asaph),  and 
the  Master  of  the  Revels.  Every  Bencher  has  the 
privilege  of  three  tickets  to  admit  ladies,  which 
amounts  to  about  a  Hundred,  for  which  there  is  a 
Gallery  erected  wherein  we  were  placed  to  see  the 
Company  dine.  The  Dinner  was  brought  up  by 
twelve  young  Gentlemen,  in  their  Gowns,  and  each 
Course  was  usher’d  in  by  Musick  ;  there  was  a  piece 
of  Beef  brought  in  by  four  men  with  a  large  Flagg 
fix’d  in  the  middle,  on  which  was  the  Arms  of  the 
Society.  After  dinner  was  perform’d  (by  a  set  of 
the  best  actors  in  Town)  the  Play  called  Love  for 
Love,  and  the  Farce  of  Devil  to  pay,  and  to  conclude, 
Singing  by  Miss  Arn.*  Then  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
Judges,  and  Sergeants,  according  to  the  ancient 

*  Susanna  Arne,  sister  of  the  composer.  In  this  year  she 
became  the  wife  of  Cibber.  It  was  for  her  that  Handel  wrote 
the  contralto  music  of  the  Messiah. 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  257 


custom,  perform’d  a  Dance  round  the  Coal-Fire  call’d 
the  Brawls,  and  after  that  retired  home,  and  left 
the  younger  set  of  company  to  partake  of  their 
entertainment.” 

In  these  degenerate  days  even  “  the  younger  set  ” 
would  have  decided  that  a  banquet,  two  plays,  and 
songs  were  as  much  entertainment  as  could  be 
borne  in  the  course  of  one  evening.  But  no  sooner 
had  the  seniors  gone  to  bed  than  n  The  young 
Gentlemen  came  up  and  chose  partners  and  con¬ 
ducted  us  down  into  a  fine  room  where  there  was 
two  Tables  most  elegantly  Spread  with  cold  things 
for  the  Ladies,  which  after  we  had  partaken  of  as 
much  as  we  thought  proper,  we  were  led  into  the 
Hall,  where  everybody  was  well  supply’d  with  fine 
Wines,  Danced  as  long  as  they  Pleased,  and  then 
returned  home.  Of  the  Royal  Family  there  was 
only  the  Prince  of  Wales  that  honoured  the  Society 
with  their  presence.” 

In  the  summer  of  the  same  year  Ellenor  was 
taken  by  her  aunt  and  uncle  to  visit  Oxford.  They 
left  their  house  in  Red  Lion  Square  on  a  Friday, 
dined  at  Uxbridge,  and  slept  at  “High  Wickham,” 
reaching  Oxford  on  Saturday  evening.  According 
to  Ellenor’s  note-book,  “  Buckinghamshire  is  a  very 
pleasant  Country,  fine  Hills  cover’d  with  Beech, 
and  the  vales  so  prettily  mixt  with  them  that  they 
form  Beautyful  Gardens,  the  Thames  and  other 
rivers  are  winding  in  them,  which  (if  possible)  add 
still  to  their  beauty.”  The  travellers  spent  nearly 


25S  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

a  week  in  Oxford,  and  Ellenor  went  through  a 
course  of  the  most  conscientious  sight-seeing,  besides 
spending  an  evening  on  the  river.  At  the  end  of 
her  diary  she  gives  a  list  of  “  some  Curiositys  I 
saw  in  the  Museum,”  from  which  one  is  led  to 
conclude  that  her  cicerone  must  have  been  an  under¬ 
graduate,  and  that  the  undergraduates  of  her  time 
were  no  better  than  their  modern  representatives. 
“  An  Egyptian  Mummie,”  “  a  Rain  Deer,”  “  a  hum¬ 
ming-bird’s  nest,”  and  other  trifles  of  the  same 
nature  were  doubtless  genuine ;  but  what  are  we 
to  make  of  “  The  Ass  that  our  Saviour  rode  on,” 
“  Moses’s  Cradle,”  or  the  mysterious  items,  “  King 
Charls  and  the  Bible  ”  ? 

In  the  summer  of  1736  Ellenor  lost  her  kind  aunt. 
The  lady,  who  had  long  been  in  bad  health,  was 
much  loved  and  missed  by  all  her  family.  Ellenor, 
who  was  with  her  at  the  time  of  her  death,  received 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Frere,  full  of  tenderness  and 
distress,  informing  her  that  “  Your  Mamma  makes 
hearty  acknowledgements  of  his  Lordship’s  great 
goodness  in  writing  to  her,  though  at  present  she 
is  capable  of  expressing  it  only  in  tears.”  However, 
before  her  husband’s  letter  was  finished,  Mrs.  Frere’s 
emotions  were  sufficiently  under  control  for  her  to 
order  her  daughter  “  to  send  down  everything 
necessaiy  for  her  dress ;  but  as  all  cannot  be 
got  ready  immediately,”  concludes  Mr.  Frere,  “’tis 
her  desire  you  would  let  her  have  a  sute  of 
Night  Clothes,  Ruffles,  and  Handkerchief  made  up, 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  259 


and  a  Night  Gown  unmade  by  the  Carrier  next 
Monday.” 

His  wife’s  death  did  not  lessen  the  Lord  Chief 
Baron’s  kindness  to  her  niece,  nor,  apparently,  did 
it  put  an  end  to  Ellenor’s  excursions.  For  her  sex 
and  the  period  in  which  she  lived  she  was  a  great 
traveller. 

Her  account  of  a  visit  to  Cambridge,  some  years 
later,  is  less  interesting  than  that  of  her  week  at 
Oxford.  She  considered  “  King’s  Chapel  excessive 
grand,  and  the  new  buildings  every  way  answerable 
to  it.”  The  Senate  House  was  “  quite  a  neat  thing, 
and  the  statue  of  King  George  the  1st  a  great  addition 
to  it,”  while  Peterhouse  Chapel  was  “  sweetly  neat.” 
Two  years  afterwards  she  went  to  Norwich  and 
Yarmouth,  and  was  disappointed  in  both  places. 
Norwich  “produced  little  worthy  [of]  observation,” 
and  the  cathedral,  “  the  finest  building  they  have 
to  boast,”  seemed  to  her  “  a  good  deal  heavy.”  She 
tantalises  the  reader  by  concluding :  “  The  Assizes 
produced  manny  and  various  Diversions  but  those 
I  shall  pass  all  by  in  silence.”  Yarmouth  at  first 
pleased  her  no  better.  “What  they  call  Coaches,  I, 
vehicles  to  dislocate  one’s  limbs,  which  convey’d  us 
about  only  to  conform  to  the  fashion,”  were  not 
to  her  taste,  and  “  the  place  fell  vastly  short  of  the 
idea  I  had  form’d.  But  I  had  not  long  allow’d 
me  to  be  Cross,  for  Look,  a  Man  of  War  appears  ! 
Courage,  I  proclaim’d,  and  was  the  1st  that  got  into 
the  Boat  to  go  and  Board  her.  ’Twas  the  Torrington, 


260 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


Captain  Edwards  Commander.  She  lay  about  a 
League  at  Sea,  and  I  own  I  was  so  agreeably 
surprised  at  the  Reception  we  there  met,  that,  had 
He  not  shew’d  us  his  Lady’s  Picture,  ’tis  odds  but 
that  my  Heart  had  been  in  his  Majesty’s  Service, 
and  toss’d  about  upon  the  Ocean.  How  shall  I 
describe  him?  He  appear’d  something  more  than 
man,  and  his  Behaviour  too  Fine  for  me  to  attempt 
to  delineate.  His  Person  claim’d  no  part  of  our 
Regard,  yet  still  He  ravish’d  all  our  Loves  and 
made  us  his  most  passionate  Admirers.  We  spent 
three  or  four  Hours  in  consummate  Joy  (with  Wines, 
Chocolate,  &c  for  Repast)  and  we  were  so  excessively 
press’d  to  dine  that  had  the  Time  permitted  I  doubt 
we  should  have  comply’d,  tho’  I  do  not  see  how 
we  could  well  have  justify’d  such  a  Proceeding. 
We  were  all  a  little  sick,  but  Eight  or  Nine  sweet 
Laced-Coat  Officers  led  us  about  which  greatly 
relieved  the  Disorder.  He  commanded  the  same 
Honours  to  be  paid  to  us  which  they  pay  to  a 
crown’d  Head,  and  with  his  two  boats,  12  Oars,  and 
all  his  Officers  attended  us  on  Shore  (forbid  any 
money  to  be  taken  by  the  Men),  and  then  with 
reciprocal  good  Wishes  parted.” 

Ellenor  also  did  her  share  of  sight-seeing  in 
London.  At  one  time  she  sees  “  Kingsington 
Palace  ”  ;  at  another  the  Foundling  Hospital.  Now 
she  is  riding  in  the  Lord  Mayor’s  second  coach  to 
the  “  Spital,”  and  dines,  sups,  and  dances  at  Grocers’ 
Hall ;  now  she  is  admiring  the  Painted  Hall  at 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  261 


Greenwich  or  the  view  from  the  top  of  St.  Paul’s. 
On  a  bright  day  in  June  she  goes  to  Hampstead 
to  see  Lord  Tilney’s  grounds  and  his  house,  which 
“  is  reckoned  to  be  the  largest  and  most  expensive 
new  one  in  England.”  A  week  later  she  travels  to 
some  unspecified  place  to  see  “an  Elephant  which 
cost  .£500,”  and  “a  famous  white  bear  which  was 
kept  in  a  cage,  a  very  great  curiosity.”  These 
excursions  and  amusements  continue  until  she  is 
long  past  girlhood.  It  is  the  common  idea  that 
youth  passed  more  quickly  in  those  days,  and  that 
an  unmarried  woman  of  more  than  thirty  years  of 
age  was  a  hopeless  old  maid,  disqualified  from  taking 
part  in  any  diversion.  But  most  of  the  expeditions 
here  described  took  place  when  Ellenor  was  well 
over  thirty  ;  and  when  she  was  nearing  forty  we  find 
her  at  “a  grand  dinner,  supper,  and  ball  for  50 
gentlemen  and  50  ladies,”  given  in  honour  of  the 
launch  of  a  ship  at  Deptford. 

It  is  strange  that  an  only  daughter  could  have 
spent  so  much  time  away  from  home,  but  a  quaint 
letter  written  by  her  father  when  she  was  absent  on 
an  excursion  down  the  Thames  shows  how  unselfish 
and  loving  were  the  parents  at  Thwaite  Hall.  Mrs. 
Frere  was  undergoing  a  course  of  physic  (which, 
strange  to  say,  made  her  worse  in  health  than  she 
had  been  for  some  years  past),  and  her  husband 
wrote  to  give  “  dear  Nelly  ”  an  account  of  the 
symptoms,  and  to  desire  “  that  no  consideration  of 
our  domestick  concerns  may  abridge  you  of  one  hour 


262 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


that  may  contribute  either  to  your  benefit  or  diver¬ 
sion  ;  but,  when  satiated  with  pleasure  and  established 
in  your  health,  you  shall  like  a  retirement  to  your 
country  Cave,  our  little  Equipage  shall  be  ready  to 
attend  you  when  and  wherever  you  appoint  in 
order  to  your  reception  at  Thwaite  with  a  sincere 
welcome,  to,  dear  Nelly,  your  most  affectionate 
Father.”  After  reading  this  letter,  there  is  additional 
pathos  in  a  little  red-covered  book  in  which  Ellenor 
has  pasted  some  obituary  notices  from  county  news¬ 
papers  of  her  father,  one-and-twenty  years  later, 
and  recorded  the  dates  of  his  last  ride  on  horse¬ 
back,  his  last  attendance  at  church,  and  his  last 
coming  downstairs,  and  his  reading  of  “  the  smallest 
print  Bible  the  very  morn  he  was  taken  with 
Death.” 

The  excursion  which  Ellenor  was  making  with 
a  large  party  of  cousins  when  her  father  wrote  this 
letter  seems  to  have  been  the  event  of  her  life. 
Long  afterwards,  when  all  the  rest  had  passed 
away  and  she  was  tottering  on  the  verge  of  the 
grave,  she  reverted  in  a  letter  to  “  that  Whitsunday, 
1745,”  as  a  day  which  she  could  never  forget. 
Among  her  papers  is  one  headed,  “  Written  by 
Order.  An  exact  and  true  account  of  every  Occur¬ 
rence  that  happened  to  Charley  and  Mary  Udney  ; 
William,  Ann,  and  Henry  Bankes ;  Charles  and 
Elizabeth  Forman  ;  Rebeccah  and  Susanna  Norton  ; 
John  Williamson;  Jack  Ekins  ;  and  Ellenor  Frere, 
in  a  Voyage  from  London  to  Rochester  and  from 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  263 


Rochester  to  London  in  a  Vessel  called  the  Mary, 
Captain  Mitchell  Commander. 

.  We  set  out  from  Thames  Street  Friday 
May  the  31st,  1745  ...  we  got  to  Gravesend  in 
very  good  time,  bespoke  a  Supper,  and  promised 
to  be  very  jocose,  but  mal-a-propos  Henry  was 
indisposed,  so  that  damped  our  mirth,  and  we  early 
withdrew  to  our  respective  quarters. 

“  Saturday  Morn.  We  got  up,  but  Henry  con¬ 
tinuing  ill  we  breakfasted  on  Shore,  so  diverted 
ourselves  with  seeing  men  and  horses  shipped  for 
Flanders.  King  Charles  (for  distinction)  and  the 
Treasurer  went  on  board  a  French  prize  under 
French  and  English  colours,  also  a  Venetian  ship. 

.  .  .  W.  B.  left  a  teaspoon  by  way  of  remembrance  ; 
Nell  made  whey  for  the  invalid,  and  the  rest  drank 
punch  and  ate  stuffed  beef  for  their  dinner.  .  .  . 
Threw  out  the  Trawl,  toiled  all  day,  but  got 
nothing  ;  William  fired  off  his  piece  several  times 
at  the  sea,  and  dexterously  hit  it.  The  King  and 
the  Treasurer  went  out  in  the  boat  .  .  .  and  brought 
us  home  Turbots  ;  those  we  carried  to  Quinborough 
where  we  lay  that  night.  .  .  .  Bet  being  somewhat 
ponderous  getting  out  of  the  boat,  the  man  dropped 
her  into  the  water. 

“  Whitsunday.  Got  up,  dress’d  ourselves  tolerably 
neat,  left  another  tea  Spoon,  went  on  board,  and 
Nell  prepared  the  Breakfast.  Three  which  shall  be 
nameless  play’d  at  Cards,  while  a  fourth,  the  Godliest 
of  the  Crew  (undesign’d)  discover’d  some  little  of 


264 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


attention.  Charly  and  Jack  went  innocently  out  to 
Paddle  in  the  Boat,  upon  which  some  unkindly 
crowded  Sail,  and  used  them  extremely  uncivil  ; 
once  they  resolved  to  leave  us  in  the  lurch,  carry 
away  our  Coal,  and  convey  themselves  to  London. 
The  Thought  surely  was  Good  ;  but  Nature  would 
break  out ;  Evil  for  Evil  they  held  not  right,  so 
blister’d  their  Hands,  melted  their  Grease,  and 
boarded  us  with  their  wonted  Good  Humour — 
D-D  Wit  a  la  mode.  By  the  help  of  the  King 
[we]  run’d  aground  ”  near  Sheerness,  but  they 
reached  Rochester  in  the  afternoon.  “  The  King, 
Nancy,  and  Beck  civily  took  away  our  Boat  and 
treated  themselves  with  a  sight  of  Upnor  Castle 
by  Rochester  ;  they  laugh’d  at  us  from  the  shore ; 
we  return’d  it  thro’  the  Speaking  Trumpet,  and  were 
most  Billingsgately  witty.  They  boarded  an  old  man 
of  war  ;  went  into  Chatham  Yard,  and  never  more 
return’d  to  us.  We  drank  Tea  above  deck,  got  a 
boat  and  row’d  for  Chatham  ;  there  we  view’d  ships 
in  all  their  various  growths,  jbut  more  particularly 
the  Royal  George,  a  1st  rate  Man  of  war  just 
finish’d ;  past  by  the  London,  now  turn’d  into  a 
Chapel  on  Sundays,  there  being  but  one  Church ; 
also  an  Hospital  Ship  to  take  in  Sick,  and  the 
Commissioners’  Yatch  which  lies  opposite  his  house; 
a  sweet  situation.  Rochester  bridge  ;  1 1  arches, 
two  fallen  into  decay  ;  a  beautiful  thing  and  most 
delightful  prospects  from  it.  We  landed,  join’d  our 
deserters,  bespoke  a  supper,  took  a  pleasant  walk 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  265 


about  the  Castle,  and  lay  at  a  melancholy  antique 
house  which  formerly  was  part  of  the  Castle. 

“  From  Rochester  to  London. 

“  Monday  morning.  Bespoke  a  quarter  of  Lamb 
to  be  rosted,  bought  a  bushel  of  Peas,  mint,  and 
a  Sallet ;  took  a  turn  about  the  Town  which  consists 
of  the  long  street  only  ;  very  ordinary  ;  look’d  into 
the  Cathedral ;  likewise  bad.  E.  Forman,  R.  and  S. 
Norton  and  E.  Frere  got  abused  for  being  plain  ; 
directed  where  to  find  the  best  old  Beer  ;  got  our 
Breakfasts,  took  our  Progg,  and  return’d  again  to 
our  Vessel ;  there  some  shell’d  the  Peas  while  others 
play’d  at  Cards  ;  M.  Udney  made  the  punch,  and 
E.  Forman  cook’d  the  dinner.  We  lay’d  the  Cloth, 
and  were  extremely  happy  ore  [sic]  our  well  Dress’d 
Peas,  when  from  a  quite  Dead  Calm  there  sprung 
up  a  Gale,  and  our  things  soon  roll’d  off  our  Table; 
at  first  we  were  mightily  pleased,  but  as  the  Sea 
run’d  High,  the  Grin  wore  off  and  we  put  on  a 
change  of  Faces  ;  we  were  now  short  of  Sheerness, 
and  ’twas  proposed  by  a  Good  Natured  Man  below 
to  put  in  There,  but  the  Bill  was  thrown  out  in  the 
House  above  us.  .  .  .  J.  H.  beg’d  hard  for  a  Reef  in 
the  Sail,  poor  Soul.  He  was  in  a  terrible  funk,  and  by 
creeping  up  the  Gang-Way  he  excluded  the  Air.  .  .  . 
There  was  but  one  who  lent  a  Hand  to  the  sick.” 

Then  follows  a  painfully  vivid  description  of  the 
sufferings  of  the  whole  party,  which  might  perhaps 
be  admitted  into  the  pages  of  a  realistic  novel, 
but  cannot  be  reproduced  here : 


266 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


“  Our  fire  was  soon  washed  out,  for  we  lay 
Gun  Hole  over  above  Two  Hours,  and  the  Ladies 
set  Knee  deep  in  Water  above  Deck ;  we  were 
always  Rolling  from  Side  to  Side,  tacking  about 
with  the  Wind  and  against  the  Tide,  and  with 
the  Tide  and  against  the  Wind,  and  run’d  Ten 
Knots  an  Hour.  At  the  Nore  we  sunk  our  boat, 
Split  our  Sail,  sprung  our  Bolt-sprit,  broke  our 
Cordage,  and  had  most  certainly  lost  poor  Sancho 
in  the  Sea  had  he  not  surprizingly  been  saved  by 
the  agility  of  Mr.  Ekins.  .  .  .  William  and  his 
Dog  Sancho  were  very  Sick,  terribly  Sick,  nai 
daintily  Sick  indeed,  as  the  Master  by  Words, 
Looks,  and  Actions  express’d  it.  The  Storm  lasted 
above  four  Hours,  and  having  Rode  about  60  or 
70  miles  by  Eleven  o’clock  at  Night,  we  arrived  at 
Gravesend,  our  1st  design’d  and  much  wish’d  for 
Haven.  Those  who  had  not  a  dry  thread  about 
them  went  soon  to  bed,  and  the  whole  Family  set 
up  to  dry  the  things  and  kindly  to  make  room  to 
lodge  us. 

“Tuesday  Morning.  Lay  in  bed  late,  so  got  late 
on  board  by  which  we  lost  our  Tide,  and  could  get 
no  further  than  Dagenham  Breach,  Twelve  miles 
short  of  London.  In  our  way  caught  a  blubber ; 
Jack  play’d  us  Tunes,  and  John  sung  us  Songs, 
and  all  were  very  merry.  At  12  o’clock  we  cast 
Anchor,  and  the  weaker  Vessels  humbly  proposed 
eating  the  Lamb  that  was  saved  the  day  before, 
playing  a  Game  at  Cards,  and  feasting  their  Eyes 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  267 


with  the  pleasant  prospects  ;  to  stay  or  not  to 
stay,  that  was  the  question.  We  reason’d  pro  and 
con,  and  the  majority  wrote  Stay,  but  the  King 
said  No,  and  there  was  one  above  the  rest  for 
Wisdom  famed,  so  we  harken’d  to  him,  and  he 
preach’d  passive  Obedience.  The  King  said  again 
‘  We’ll  go,’  and  the  rest  became  occasional  con¬ 
formists.  We  call’d  a  Fishing  Boat  to  our  Aid, 
and  for  sport,  William  gave  the  man  Sixpence  a 
throw,  and  got  most  miraculous  Draughts  of  Fishes. 
Various  were  the  amusements  to  the  Gentlemen 
on  Shore,  such  as  Angling  of  Roach,  Shooting  at 
Sparrows,  and  paddling  about  in  a  River ;  Sukey 
lay  on  the  bed  all  the  time,  and  when  dinner  was 
over  we  return’d  to  our  Yatch,  but  being  low  water 
went  down  a  pair  of  Stairs  that  by  the  Ladies 
I  dare  to  affirm  will  ever  be  remember’d  ;  there 
was  the  fatal  Place  where  Nell  so  daggled  her 
Fringe  that  poor  James  made  that  heavy  complaint 
1  The  higher  we  go  the  wetter  we  grow,’  and  took 
a  Sweat  drying  her  undergarments.  It  now  Rain’d 
excessively  hard,  so  we  were  obliged  to  keep  all 
below,  suffocated  with  Heat,  and  almost  drown’d 
in  our  Cabbin.  The  Captain  would  carry  us  no 
further  than  the  place  where  He  took  us  in,  and 
so  we  lay  in  the  Yatch  all  Night,  where  some 
play’d  at  Cards  and  imposed  Silence  on  the  Rest, 
while  others  reclined  on  a  Watery  Bed  ;  Nell  was 
most  cursedly  Cross,  and  why  ?  because  she  could 
neither  Talk,  Play,  or  Kiss.  ...  At  6  o’clock  we 


268 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


got  two  boats  Row’d  up  to  Billingsgate,  and  so 
ended  the  Happy  Voyage.” 

It  does  not  seem  as  if  this  could  have  been  a  very 
delightful  excursion,  but  to  Ellenor  it  was  evidently 
the  one  hour  which  Eve’s  entreaties  extorted  for 
her  daughters  when  she  was  driven  from  Paradise. 
There  must  have  been  some  one  on  that  “Yatch” 
who  was  the  man  of  all  men  for  her ;  but  there 
is  nothing  to  tell  us  who  he  was  or  why  her  story 
had  no  better  ending.  Among  a  bundle  of  letters 
is  one  on  which  she  has  written  in  pencil,  “  Very 
silly  Rigmarole.”  It  is  from  Jack  Ekins,  who  was 
one  of  the  party ;  and,  with  much  banter  and  many 
allusions  to  incidents  of  the  voyage,  it  tells  her  how 
dull  they  are  without  her :  “  The  load  at  my  heart 
I  believe  I  left  behind,  as  you  hint,  but  left  that  only 
to  make  room  for  a  heavier  which  my  Friends  all 
agree  has  likewise  much  affected  my  Head,  which  has 
been  very  Muzzy  and  dull  ever  since  the  7th  Instant, 
generally  imputed  to  the  absence  of  a  certain 
agreeable  Lady  that  shall  be  nameless.  You  can’t 
imagine  how  very  stupidly  we  spend  our  Time,  the 
Husband  lolling  on  his  Wife’s  shoulder,  now  and 
then  opens  his  mouth  with  a  ‘  How  d’ye  do,  Pug  ?  ’, 
then  a  Kiss  ;  ‘there,  Pig’  ;  then  ‘What’s  poor  Nelly 
about?’;  the  Wife  stroking  and  cuddling  the  Hus¬ 
band,  kisses  his  Nose,  Eyebrows,  &c,  and  crawls  over 
him  like  a  Snail,  and  breaks  the  silence  with  the 
wonderfull  Soliloquy  of  ‘  How  do  you  do,  my  dear 
Billy?’  and  poor  forlorn  Jack  sits  and  bites  his 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  269 


Nails,  nay  is  so  very  Stupid,  don’t  even  Scold, 
which  you  know  upon  occasion  he  can  do.  The 
first  week  we  all  went  to  bed  at  Nine  a’clock 
for  our  Condition  was  unsupportable,  and  when  any 
Strangers  came,  call’d  in  Company  to  entertain 
them,  as  you  know  is  done  in  some  parts  of 
Suffolk.  My  brother  the  Parson  exclaims  bitterly 
against  you,  and  can’t  imagine  what  the  D — 1 
you  have  done  to  us  all.” 

He  then  reminds  “  Coz.  Nelly”  of  her  promise  to 
find  him  a  wife  in  the  country,  and  draws  a  picture 
of  the  qualifications  which  he  expects  :  “  She  should 
have  £10,000  down  in  consideration  of  which  I  will 
settle  upon  her  .  .  .  my  own  dear  self ;  if  she  should 
have  any  Parents  let  them  be  as  dutifull  as  you 
can ;  don’t  let  her  be  dumb,  let  her  Prate,  but  not 
be  witty  lest  I  should  be  the  subject ;  not  a  Beauty, 
nor  yet  ugly,  let  her  have  good  sense  with  a  genteei 
easy  carriage,  and  her  person  of  the  middle  size, 
lest  it  should  be  a  Woman  and  her  Husband,  her 
Complexion  an  honest  brown,  her  constitution  some¬ 
what  amorous,  she’ll  obey  the  better,  let  her  be 
kind,  good-natured  and  cheerful,  always  receiving 
my  Friends  as  she  would  myself.  .  .  .  There  are 
other  trifles  requisite  which  I  shall  leave  to  your 
discretion,  but  I  had  like  to  have  forgot  one  thing, 
she  must  let  Breakfast  be  ready  to  my  time  in  a 
morning,  and  never  let  me  wait  above  five  minutes 
for  my  Dinner,  such  a  Wife  is  worth  fetching 
even  out  of  High  Suffolk.” 


2  7°  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

It  is  difficult  not  to  imagine  that  this  portrait 
was  intended  for  “  Nelly  ”  herself — although  she  was 
generally  reputed  witty.  Did  Mr.  Ekins  intend  to 
hint  what  he  had  not  the  courage  to  say  openly  ? 
or  is  this  no  more  than  the  warm  affiection  and 
esteem  sometimes  to  be  found  between  two  persons 
of  the  opposite  sex  who  never  dream  of  a  closer 
tie  than  friendship?  Conjecture  is  idle;  but 
“  L’Hymen,  dit-on,  craint  les  petits  cousins.”  His 
letters,  and  those  from  other  friends  and  kinsmen 
of  her  youth,  were  tied  by  Ellenor  in  a  packet,  on 
which  is  written  in  the  feeble  hand  of  old  age, 
“  Old  keepsakes  these,  and  so  are  all  the  other 
bundle  of  letters,  nothing  of  any  business  in  them, 
but  I  loved  and  esteemed  many  of  the  writers,  and 
still  love  to  kiss  their  hands.” 

#-  * 

* 

The  curtain  falls  over  her  in  middle  age,  and 
when  we  catch  another  glimpse  of  her  it  is  no 
longer  blithe  “  Nell,”  but  venerable  Mrs.  Ellenor 
who  is  revealed  to  us.  Father,  mother,  and  brother 
are  all  dead,  Thwaite  Hall  is  sold,  her  brother’s  son 
is  master  of  the  house  her  brother  purchased — Roydon 
Hall,  .near  Diss — and  she,  affectionately  styled  by 
all  the  family  “  our  old  aunt,”  is  living  near  him  in 
her  own  house  at  Palgrave.  Nearly  all  who  could 
remember  her  in  her  gay  youth  have  passed  away 
before  her  ;  but  she  is  dear  to  the  younger  generations, 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  271 


who  will  not  allow  her  to  be  desolate  or  lonely. 
Her  letters  are  full  of  them  and  their  concerns  ;  be 
it  a  birth,  a  marriage,  an  election,  or  the  making 
of  a  set  of  shirts,  Aunt  Ellenor  must  have  a  share 
in  it.  Her  nephew,  John  Frere,  of  Roydon,  writes  : 
“  You  say,  I  treat  you  more  like  a  Mother  than 
an  Aunt— and  pray  do  you  wonder  at  it  ?  if  I  can 
feel  any  satisfaction  in  cherishing  sentiments  of  that 
kind,  to  whom  should  I  direct  them  but  to  you, 
whose  care  and  prudence  has,  from  our  earliest 
infancy,  made  you,  and  still  continues  to  make 
you,  truly  so  to  us  all  ?  ”  This  letter  was  tied 
with  others  of  a  like  nature  from  various  relatives 
in  a  bundle,  endorsed  on  the  outside  by  Mrs. 
Ellenor,  “  These  the  comfort  of  my  Heart  in 
old  age.” 

From  her  letters  we  may  gather  how  she  spent 
her  time.  Reading  and  writing  occupied  many 
hours  when  the  weakness  of  her  eyes  would  permit. 
Advancing  years  obliged  her  to  give  up  riding, 
but  she  bought  a  sedan  chair,  in  which  to  take  the 
air,  for  four  guineas,  and,  later  on,  she  acquired  “  a 
Chamber  Horse” — similar,  in  all  probability,  to  those 
interesting  machines  on  which  the  smiling  gentle¬ 
men  in  a  well-known  advertisement  enjoy  horse 
exercise  in  their  own  bedrooms.  She  sometimes 
took  exercise  in  her  garden  :  a  note  in  the  fly-leaf 
of  one  of  her  little  books  tells  us  that  “  eleven  times 
round  my  Garden  is  a  compleat  mile.”  Inside  the 
same  book  is  the  following  verse,  whether  her  own 


272 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


composition  or  borrowed  from  another  source  does 
not  appear : 

“  If  e’er  the  book  on  which  you  look 
Be  stolen,  lent,  or  lost, 

Pray  bring  it  me,  for  I  am  she 
That  once  paid  what  it  cost.” 

She  was  a  notable  housewife.  A  large  sheet  of 
paper  is  endorsed,  in  her  writing,  “  Things  to  be 
thought  about,  look  for  within.”  Among  the 
memoranda  are  such  items  as  these  : 

“  Put  up  Bacon  in  the  increase  of  the  Moon  late 
in  February  or  early  in  March. 

“  Bespeak  a  Goose  always  for  old  Michaelmas 
Day. 

“Make  mince  pie  meat  before  the  12th  of 
November,  and  a  Servants’  Cake. 

“When  the  Snow  lies  on  the  House  on  the  fore 
part  of  it,  be  sure  to  have  it  swept  before  bedtime. 

“  When  you  wash  the  little  parlour  draw-up  Cur¬ 
tains,  do  it  in  water  that  Sheep  have  been  washed 
in,  and  use  no  sope. 

“Gather  Centory  when  it  1st  begins  to  shew  all 
its  red  buds  before  they  blow  out. 

“  Late  in  June  smoke  the  best  chamber  with 
Tobacco  and  everything  in  it.” 

She  kept  a  little  book  in  which  she  carefully 
recorded  the  days  in  each  year  on  which  she  began 
and  ceased  to  light  fires  in  her  establishment.  She 
observed  the  weather  with  great  interest,  and  noted 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  273 


down  such  events  as  the  terrible  frost  of  the  winter 
of  1794 — 1795,  when  the  snow  began  to  fall  on  the 
night  of  December  24th  and  lasted  till  February  8th, 
going  away  with  “  a  most  violent  and  destructive 
Flood.”  In  the  same  year,  before  harvest,  wheat 
was  sold  “  at  £3.  10s  a  Comb,  and  more  was  asked, 
and  before  September  was  out,  it  was  to  be  bought 
for  a  Guinea.  Prodigious  was  the  crops  of  every 
grain  to  restore  plenty  to  an  ungrateful  people.” 

She  also  kept  a  list  of  her  servants,  with  the 
dates  on  which  they  came  to  her  and  left  her,  and 
the  amount  of  their  wages,  which  varied  from  £$ 
a  year  to  one  of  the  maids,  to  fourteen  guineas 
paid  to  a  manservant.  Over  the  top  of  her  table 
of  wages  is  the  note,  “  The  great-coats  to  be  bought 
only  when  I  please.”  One  entry  reads  quaintly : 
“  May  25th  1777,  Trinity  Sunday.  Frances  Partridge 
came  out  with  the  small-pox  and  was  nursed  in 
my  wash-house  chamber.”  The  nursing  proved 
effectual,  for  two  years  later  Frances  Partridge  is 
mentioned  as  “  married  from  my  house  ” ;  and  a 
similar  entry  is  often  repeated  in  the  case  of  other 
servants,  which  looks  as  if  Mrs.  Ellenor  were  a  good 
and  indulgent  mistress.  She  has  recorded  that  the 
loss  of  a  certain  Elizabeth  Sydal,  who  “  married  from 
me,”  was  “  a  grief  to  me,”  but  otherwise  she  expresses 
no  opinions. 

Washing-day — that  season  of  trial  to  all  establish¬ 
ments  where  a  laundry  is  maintained  on  the  premises 
— came  once  in  eight  weeks.  This  seems  somewhat 

18 


274 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


infrequent,  but  there  must  be  persons  still  living 
who  can  remember  old-fashioned  establishments  in 
Wales  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century  where 
washing-day  came  but  twice  a  year.  All  soiled 
linen  was  flung  into  a  great  cupboard,  which  was 
opened  once  in  six  months,  when  the  males  of  the 
household  were  expected  to  keep  out  of  the  way 
for  a  week  or  so,  while  the  women  lived  in  an 
atmosphere  of  soap  and  starch,  and  snatched 
occasional  mouthfuls  of  cold  food  as  best  they 
might.  Mrs.  Ellenor’s  washing-day  was  sufficiently 
disturbing  for  her  to  decline  entertaining  fourteen 
of  her  relatives  at  dinner  while  it  lasted. 

Her  neatness  was  admirable.  Her  notes  and 
letters  were  generally  kept  in  pockets  made  by  her 
from  brown  paper,  and  fastened  by  pieces  of  ribbon. 
She  carries  tidiness  to  an  extreme  by  making  a 
little  case  from  a  piece  of  vellum,  on  which  some 
old  deed  had  once  been  written,  in  order  to  hold 
a  scrap  of  paper  on  which  she  has  noted  some 
information  about  the  parentage  of  the  Graces  and 
the  Muses.  Her  dimness  of  sight,  thin  paper,  and 
bad  ink  have  combined  to  make  some  of  her  letters 
hard  to  read,  but  her  writing  on  the  stiff  paper  of 
her  note-books  is  beautifully  clear. 

She  was  a  wise  and  kind  friend  to  the  poor, 
sometimes  acting  as  her  nephew’s  almoner,  and 
writing  to  tell  him  of  the  welfare  of  their  protigds. 
She  was  always  ready  to  concern  herself  for  others, 
and  one  of  her  letters  gives  an  amusing  description 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  275 


of  her  efforts  to  bring  about  a  good  understanding 
between  a  husband  and  wife.  As  far  as  can  be 
made  out  from  an  involved  and  unpunctuated  story, 
the  wife  had  become  estranged  from  her  husband, 
and  begged  for  counsel  from  Mrs.  Ellenor — “  a  person 
now  quite  unqualified  to  give  sentiments  even  on 
less  material  subjects,”  in  her  own  opinion.  How¬ 
ever,  the  old  lady  proved  herself  equal  to  the  occa¬ 
sion,  and  gently  insinuated  with  regard  to  the  wife 
“  having  visited  about  for  a  time  ”  that  “  the  kind 
treatment  and  consolatory  thoughts  of  real  friends 
were  surely  great  comforts  in  affliction,  and  a  little 
transient  view  of  the  world  a  little  entertainment, 
but  solid  happiness  could  only  be  found  within  the 
walls  of  one’s  own  house.”  She  then  dwelt  upon 
the  husband’s  virtues,  and,  as  she  writes  to  her  niece, 
“  hoped  those  drops  would  a  little  sweeten  some  bitter 
ones  which  in  this  state  of  trial  in  some  shape  or 
other  is  judged  proper  for  every  individual.” 

She  was  flattered  when  a  young  lover  made  her 
his  confidante  in  his  difficulties,  and  rejoiced  when 
the  lady’s  father,  who  began  by  packing  his  daughter 
off  to  Yarmouth  to  be  out  of  the  way  of  her  suitor, 
was  brought  to  reason,  The  “  lump  of  rich  cake  ” 
with  which  the  newly  married  pair  complimented 
her  was  evidently  a  welcome  gift,  and  she  has 
entered  the  wedding  among  the  important  occurrences 
of  the  year  1800.  On  the  same  page  of  the  book 
is  noted,  “February  the  26th,  1797,  the  Bank  of 
England  and  all  private  banks  suspended  the  issuing 


276 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


Cash  by  order  of  the  Privy  Council  for  a  time.” 
According  to  Mrs.  Ellenor,  the  chief  events  worthy 
of  remembrance  in  the  year  1793  were,  “  Louis  of 
France  beheaded  January  the  21st,”  “The  Queen 
of  France  beheaded  October  the  1 6th,”  and 
“  Mr.  Edward  Frere’s  dreadful  fall  of  [sic]  the  corn 
sack,  June  the  5th.”  She  must  have  lacked  the 
sense  of  proportion  as  grievously  as  the  compiler 
of  a  calendar  for  the  year  1900,  which  notes,  on 
January  22nd  “Sir  I.  Pitman  died,  1897,”  and 
on  January  23rd  “William  Pitt  died,  1806.” 

Although  unable  to  take  part  in  any  of  the  gaieties 
to  which  she  had  been  so  much  attached,  she  enjoyed 
hearing  of  them,  and  was  as  disappointed  as  any 
miss  in  her  teens  when  “the  Grand  Assembly”  in 
a  neighbouring  town  was  “  but  a  very  poor  one,” 
“  neither  Dutches  [sic],  nor  Frere,  nor  Chevilier, 
Maynard,  nor  any  great  personages  there.”  Her 
letters  are  full  of  gossip  about  her  neighbours, 
generally  of  a  kind  and  friendly  sort.  She  dearly 
loved  a  little  scandal.  One  of  her  little  note-books 
contains  some  stories  about  several  county  families 
which  are  more  curious  than  edifying,  although  her 
omission  to  date  most  of  them  leaves  an  ignorant 
reader  in  doubt  as  to  whether  the  persons  mentioned 
wfere  her  own  contemporaries  or  belonged,  like 
Methuselah  and  Julius  Caesar,  to  some  remote  period 
of  history. 

“  I  have  scratch’d  till  both  pen  and  guider  are 
quite  tired,”  she  tells  her  niece  ;  “  but  a  pack  of 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  277 


dam  lies  (your  brother  will  say)  will  revive  them 
again  and  make  them  fly  with  swiftness.  Admiral 
Wilson  was  at  Bodesdale  Fair,  ascention  day.  He 

has  twice  been  sent  for,  post,  to  see  Mr.  H -  in 

his  last  moments  ;  he  is  one  day  dying,  and  the 
next  riding  to  Diss,  and  next  week  Sir  and  Madam 
going  to  London,  as  the  Admiral  told  Mr.  Catchpole 
at  the  fair.  ’Tis  said  that  this  expedition  is  to  sell 
8  hundred  a  year  to  pay  off  large  debts.  I  dare 
not  say  the  truth  of  the  £800  being  gospel,  but 
the  following  is — that  Sir  kept  his  room,  but  that 
day  Madam  had  neither  gone  in,  or  sent  to  enquire 
after  him,  [and  she]  had  much  company  to  dine 
there,  and  at  dinner-time  he  asked  his  man  what 
time  dinner  was  to  be  ready  that  day,  for  he  had 
not  been  told.  The  servant  answer’d  ‘  They  are 
now  at  dinner,  Sir.’  He  swore  most  dreadfully,  and 
order’d  his  man  to  give  him  his  stilts,  tore  down, 
and  1st  damn’d  his  wife  most  dreadfully,  and  that 
done,  ended  with  ‘  Damn  you  all,’  upon  which 
they  all  order’d  their  carriages  and  horses  and  left 
the  Hall  directly.  This  received  from  such  hands 
as  I  can  depend  upon.” 

She  was  troubled  with  many  infirmities.  Her  eyes 
had  never  been  strong,  and  her  increasing  deafness 
was  painful  and  troublesome,  not  only  from  its  in¬ 
convenience,  but  from  the  noises  in  her  head  which 
accompanied  it.  Her  family  insisted  upon  her  having 
a  companion,  an  attention  with  which  Mrs.  Ellenor, 
like  many  other  old  ladies,  would  willingly  have 


278 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


dispensed.  After  many  failures,  one  was  brought 
to  her  from  East  Dereham,  and  Mrs.  Ellenor, 
while  professing  to  think  herself  “  extremely  well 
off,”  had  much  to  say  of  the  shortcomings  of  the 
new  arrival ;  “  reads  so  so,  but  ’tis  not  her  hobby¬ 
horse,  loving  to  go  full  trot,  I  suppose,  fears  meeting 
some  hard  stumbling  places  in  the  road,  so  declines 
the  undertaking  as  much  as  possible  .  .  .  is  not  foolish, 
I  believe,  in  many  things,  could  say  A,  but  lest  B 
should  be  required  sits  upon  her  chair  from  morn 
till  eve  with  snuff  in  her  fingers,  stuffing  up  close 
the  two  air  holes.”  Mrs.  Ellenor  ends  with  the 
assurance,  “  I  flatter  myself  that  by  degrees  I  shall 
put  all  her  members  in  motion,  and  shall  never 
more  want  to  plague  my  friends  to  procure  me 
another  Companion.”  This  hope  was  not  realised. 
There  is  a  sheet  of  paper  with  a  long  string  of  names 
headed,  “  Alphabetical  list  of  companions.” 

It  was  then  the  fashion  for  ladies  to  keep  pets, 
and  one  of  Mrs.  Ellenor’s  acquaintance  is  described 
as  travelling  with  a  dog,  a  cat,  a  parrot,  and  a 
squirrel.  Mrs.  Ellenor  yielded  to  custom  so  far  as 
to  keep  a  linnet  and  a  nightingale.  The  latter  died, 
and  its  place  was  taken  by  a  canary,  the  gift  of  her 
niece,  which  was  evidently  as  great  a  treasure  as 
the  “  new  brass  watch,  cost  4  Guineys,”  which  came 
from  London,  and  is  also  entered  in  a  note-book. 

She  followed  the  course  of  public  events  with  an 
interest  that  was  sometimes  too  keen  for  her  peace 
of  mind,  as  on  one  occasion  when,  “  to  fright  fools, 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  279 


and  myself  one  of  them,  our  wicked  people  from 
Diss  declared  it  for  a  truth  (with  great  concern )  that 
on  such  a  night  London  was  set  on  fire  in  ten 
several  places.  I  shaked  at  hearing  it,”  adds  the 
poor  old  lady. 

One  of  the  public  events  in  which  she  seems 
to  have  taken  most  interest  was  the  restoration  to 
sanity  of  George  III.  in  1789.  One  of  her  brown 
paper  bags  contains  leaflets  and  cuttings  from  the 
newspapers  which  have  reference  to  it.  There  is 
the  prayer  to  be  used  “during  His  Majesty’s  present 
indisposition,”  and  the  form  of  thanksgiving  for  his 
recovery.  There  is  a  copy  of  the  Bury  and  Norwich 
Post  for  Wednesday,  April  29th,  with  a  long  account 
of  the  king’s  state  visit  to  St.  Paul’s  to  return  thanks. 
From  the  London  correspondent  of  this  paper  we 
learn  that  the  Speaker  in  his  robes  set  out  from 
Palace  Yard  at  a  quarter  to  eight,  and  was  followed 
by  the  Lord  Chancellor,  accompanied  by  “  all  the 
lords  in  coaches,  the  youngest  baron  going  first,  and 
the  Duke  of  Norfolk  bringing  up  the  rear.”  “The 
female  nobility,  gentry,  and  others”  were  sent  along 
Holborn,  and  set  down  at  Cannon  Alley.  After 
the  House  of  Lords  came  the  Dukes  of  Cumberland, 
Gloucester,  and  York,  with  their  suites.  “The  Gentle¬ 
men  of  the  Artillery  Company  with  the  Pioneers, 
and  a  party  of  the  Toxophylites,  or  ancient  Archers, 
dressed  in  green  coats  and  feathers,  with  bows  and 
quivers  at  their  backs,  marched  immediately  before 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  whose  equipages  were  the  most 


28o 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


splendid  ever  exhibited.  In  the  first  coach,  with 
his  attendants,  were  six  of  the  most  beautiful  black 
horses  ever  seen,  richly  caparisoned ;  the  postillion 
in  a  tight  jacket  of  gold,  and  a  cap  [sic]  the  same  ; 
the  horses  prancing  in  a  most  elegant  manner.” 
Their  majesties,  drawn  in  a  coach  with  eight  horses, 
and  attended  by  the  elder  princesses  in  their 
carriages,  arrived,  between  eleven  and  twelve,  at 
Temple  Bar,  where  they  were  received  by  the 
Lord  Mayor,  who  presented  the  city  sword.  The  Lord 
Mayor’s  horse  “  was  conspicuous  from  its  supporters  ; 
two  of  the  city  militia  walked  on  each  side,  holding 
the  bridle  with  one  hand,  and,  with  a  saving  caution, 
holding  the  other  over  his  lordship’s  legs,  it  is  sup¬ 
posed,  in  order  to  correct  any  accident  that  might 
disturb  the  equipoise  of  the  body. 

“  Many  ladies  sat  up  all  night,  and  those  who 
did  not,  were  under  the  necessity  of  rising  at  the 
unfashionable  hour  of  four  in  the  morning.  .  .  . 
The  morning  was  rather  unfavourable,  and  much 
diversion  was  afforded  to  those  already  in  their 
situations,  to  see  the  ladies,  without  hats  or  caps, 
running  along  in  the  mud  to  take  their  places.”  The 
price  of  seats  fell  at  the  last  moment,  and  “those 
for  which  two  guineas  were  asked,  were  let  for  5s.” 

The  festivities  were  prolonged  through  the  summer. 
In  June  the  foreign  embassies  gave  fetes  to  the 
Royal  Family.  The  first  was  at  the  house  of  the 
French  ambassador  in  Portman  Square,  to  which 
about  nine  hundred  cards  of  invitation  were  issued. 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  28! 


The  queen  arrived  at  half-past  nine,  and  was  enter¬ 
tained  with  ballets  by  dancers  from  the  opera. 
She  was  afterwards  handed  by  the  ambassador, 
“  none  of  Her  Majesty’s  own  sons  being  then  in 
attendance,  to  the  tea-room,  through  an  arbour  of 
trees,  decorated  with  a  transparency  of  the  sun.”  The 
princes  behaved  with  their  usual  bad  taste  and  bad 
feeling,  for  when  at  half-past  ten  “  many  of  the 
company  stood  up  to  dance  country  dances,  none 
of  their  Royal  Highnesses  thinking  proper  to  come 
forward  to  dance,  their  Royal  sisters  condescended 
to  accept  the  hands  of  some  of  the  nobility.”  The 
dances  continued  till  near  one  o’clock,  when  “  the 
supper- rooms  were  opened,  and  displayed  a  scene  of 
luxury  and  magnificence  scarcely  to  be  described.” 

This  fete  was  surpassed  by  one  given  in  the 
Rotunda  at  Ranelagh  by  the  Marquis  del  Campo, 
which  cost  the  Court  of  Spain  about  .£12,000.  “  When 
the  Queen  came  in,  there  was  very  little  light  in  the 
room,  but  on  her  appearance,  by  touching  some 
of  the  lamps,  the  whole  lighted  up  instantaneously, 
and  had  the  effect  of  being  the  consequence  of  her 
appearance .”  After  dances  and  fireworks  came  a 
lottery,  “  which  was  something  quite  new  and 
supremely  gallant,  for  it  was  only  for  the  ladies ,  and 
there  was  not  a  single  blank!'  One  is  glad  to  know 
that  the  queen  and  princesses  took  their  chance 
in  the  lottery,  not  being  particularly  successful. 
Supper  was  served  in  the  boxes,  the  Marquis  del 
Campo  himself  carving  for  the  queen.  “  There  were 


282 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


about  1 5  dishes  on  every  table,  several  removes,  a 
profusion  of  ices,  strawberries  and  cherries,  and 
peaches  at  four  guineas  a  dozen!' 

Among  the  newspaper  cuttings  is  a  slip  of  paper 
on  which  Mrs.  Ellenor,  after  reading  of  all  these 
great  doings,  has  proudly  written  :  “  Pray  let  me 
boast  of  Palgrave’s  loyal  Joy,  tho’  little  in  your  eyes, 
magnificent  in  ours.  .  .  .  Every  man,  woman,  and 
child  a  bellyful  of  ale,  and  plenty  of  plumb-pudding,” 
and  “  2  Barrels  of  good  ale  given  in  the  same  manner,” 
“  a  dinner  provided  for  the  gentlemen  and  farmers 
at  the  Swan.  The  bells  ushered  in  the  day,  with 
flags  streaming  in  the  air,  while  the  commonallity 
stuff’d,  french  horns,  flutes  and  scrape-guts  charm’d 
their  ears,  and  Madam  Frere’s  carriage  stood  on  the 
green  to  see  and  hear  the  various  Joys  exhibited 
on  the  merciful  occasion.” 

Another  cause  of  excitement  to  Mrs.  Ellenor  and 
all  her  neighbours  came  in  the  following  year,  1798, 
when  a  French  invasion  was  daily  expected.  We 
who  remember  such  a  calamity  being  regarded  as 
within  the  bounds  of  possibility  only  a  little  while 
ago,  cannot  deride  their  fears.  The  spirit  shown 
by  the  whole  country  was  admirable,  and  even  the 
usually  sluggish  East  Anglians  were  stirred  to 
warlike  ardour.  Body  after  body  of  volunteers  was 
raised,  equipped,  and  drilled,  and  keen  was  the  rivalry 
between  the  corps  belonging  to  different  towns. 
John  Frere  was  the  captain  of  the  Diss  volunteers, 
and  his  sons  were  as  ready  as  he  to  serve  their 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  283 


country,  to  the  joy  and  pride  of  the  old  aunt,  who 
displayed  as  undaunted  a  spirit  as  any  of  them. 

“My  dear  nephew,”  she  wrote  to  John  Frere, 
“  Mrs.  Maynard  on  Sunday  came  and  set  some  time 
with  me.  She  fears  not  the  French,  she  says,  nor 
never  will,  but  your  face,  she  says,  [is]  longer  than 
her  arm.  Your  Diss  company  increases  dayly — 84 
I  hear  are  enter’d  and  dayly  more  pressing  in. 
Mr.  Palgrave  said  he  could  not  spare  his  men,  but 
has  got  a  substitute  and  clothed  him.  My  James 
goes  every  night  for  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks,  and 
after  that  three  nights  in  a  week,  and  his  uniform 
is  just  finish’d,  fit  to  appear  before  you  to  obey 
your  orders.  Everybody  in  our  parish  (save  the 
Methodists)  have  sign’d  to  be  faithful  to  government 
and  do  to  their  utmost  what  ever  shall  be  directed 
them  to  do.  Lady  Fenn  is  amazed  at  my  serenity 
these  dreadful  times,  and  I  am  not  less  amazed  at 
her  timidity.  I  trust  in  providence  for  present  and 
future  safetys  ;  if  money  will  keep  the  disturbers 
of  our  peace  from  setting  foot  on  English  ground 
they  are  welcome  to  my  part.  (‘What  ALL?’  No, 
1  cannot  part  with  that — but  if  I  must — &c — ),  and 
if  I  can  but  get  enough  to  supply  their  12  months’ 
demands  1  will  not  (like  old  Euclio)  sigh,  but  give 
it  for  the  public  good  with  pleasure.  Mr.  Waith 
is  Captain  of  the  Eye  Volunteers,  and  old  Madam 
says  ’tis  the  1st  nail  in  her  coffin  and  is  vastly 
angry.  They  come  on  prodidious  fast,  and  he  is 
said  to  make  a  fine  figure  and  does  his  work  to 


284  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

perfection.  They  are  going  to  get  from  London  a 
master  of  the  whole  affair  to  come  down  to  make 
them  outshine  the  neighbouring  pretenders,  ’tis  said 
that  without  such  a  guide  poor  Diss  will  truly  cut 
but  a  very  ordinary  appearance.  .  .  .  This  moment 
Ned  Frost  come  in.  .  .  .  they  have  got  their  62, 
are  to  work  hard,  for  a  General  is  coming  in  a 
week  or  two  to  review  them.” 

The  Diss  volunteers  worked  hard  at  their  drill, 
and  proved  themselves  worthy  of  the  colours  which 
were  presented  to  them  by  their  captain’s  wife. 
A  pocket  in  one  of  Mrs.  Ellenor’s  note-books  contains 
a  pen-and-ink  sketch  of  the  design  on  the  colours — 
the  pillar  of  state  founded  upon  the  rock  of  the 
constitution,  and  surmounted  by  the  crown,  flanked 
on  one  side  by  a  cannon  and  on  the  other  by 
the  arms  of  Diss.  With  it  is  a  cutting  from  a  local 
paper  which  gives  an  account  of  the  ceremony  : 

“  On  Saturday  last  the  colours  were  presented 
to  the  Diss  Volunteer  Corps,  by  Mrs.  Frere,  their 
Captain’s  lady,  with  a  very  neat  and  elegant  Speech. 
The  allusion  in  her  speech  to  the  design  on  the 
colours  ...  we  thought  was  very  impressive.  The 
address  of  Captain  Frere  (which  was  of  consider¬ 
able  length)  was  argumentative  and  convincing.  .  .  . 
After,  the  presentation  of  the  Colours,  the  Corps 
attended  divine  service  ;  the  sermon,  preached  by 
Mr.  Manning  the  Rector  of  the  parish,  was  the 
kind  affectionate  and  pious  exhortation  of  the  Pastor 
to  his  flock — it  seemed  to  us  like  the  admonitions 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  285 


and  encouragements  of  a  Patriarch  of  old  to  his 
numerous  descendants,  armed  for  the  common 
defence  of  their  country. 

“  The  various  evolutions  exhibited  by  the  Corps 
were  in  general  well  executed,  and  prove  that  the 
attention  of  the  Corps  has  kept  pace  with  the  great 
pains  their  Officers  have  taken  with  them.  After 
the  evolutions  were  over,  the  Corps  were  treated 
with  an  excellent  dinner  and  wine,  at  the  King’s 
Head,  by  their  Captain.  The  company  was  more 
numerous  and  respectable  than  we  ever  remember 
to  have  seen  on  any  other  occasion.” 

Not  very  long  ago  there  passed  away  an  old  man 
who  remembered  in  his  youth  to  have  seen  “  Captain 
Frere  ”  haranguing  his  volunteers  “  by  Diss  pump 
as  is  now  ”  ;  but  all  that  he  could  remember  of  his 
lengthy  and  argumentative  speech  was  the  phrase, 
“  Gentlemen,  I’m  an  old  man,  but  a  young  soldier.” 
Mrs.  Ellenor’s  letters  do  not  make  it  clear  whether 
she  was  able  to  be  present  on  this  interesting 

occasion,  but  she  keenly  enjoyed  talking  of  it  to 

all  who  paid  their  respects  to  her  during  that  season. 

A  still  more  delightful  event  in  her  eyes  was 
the  return  of  her  nephew,  John  Frere,  as  one  of 

the  members  for  Norwich  in  the  year  before  her 

death.  Why  a  staid,  elderly  man  who  had  never 
before  attempted  Parliamentary  life  should  suddenly 
take  it  into  his  head  to  become  a  candidate  it  is 
hard  to  explain  ;  perhaps  he  may  have  been  incited 
thereto  by  his  eldest  son,  the  celebrated  John 


286 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


Hookham  Frere,  who  had  for  some  years  represented 
West  Looe.  But  the  Cornish  election  was  a  very 
different  thing.  It  is  said  that  J.  H.  Frere  was  never 
at  West  Looe  in  his  life  until  he  passed  through 
it  on  his  way  to  the  Continent,  and  that  he  did 
not  realise  where  he  was  until  the  inhabitants  set 
the  bells  ringing  in  honour  of  their  member.  The 
Norwich  election  proved  a  severe  contest,  and 
although  it  ended  in  a  victory  for  Mr.  Wyndham 
and  his  colleague,  Mr.  Frere,  there  were  many  days 
and  nights  of  anxiety,  as  well  as  many  hours  of 
hard  work  for  zealous  Tories.  In  order  to  prevent 
the  drunkenness  which  was  one  of  the  worst  features 
of  an  election,  the  rival  candidates  agreed  not  to 
throw  open  the  public-houses  for  so  many  days 
beforehand  as  wras  generally  the  custom.  In  making 
this  virtuous  and  economical  resolution  they  reckoned 
without  the  Norwich  brewers,  who  threatened  to 
run  a  candidate  of  their  own  if  their  business  were 
made  to  suffer  in  this  way.  Accordingly  the  public- 
houses  were  perforce  opened,  and  the  free  and 
independent  electors,  having  to  make  up  for  lost 
time,  availed  themselves  of  their  opportunities  to 
such  an  extent  that  this  election  was  afterwards 
remembered  as  one  of  the  worst,  in  the  matter  of 
drunkenness,  that  had  ever  disgraced  the  city. 

Mr.  Frere  was  not  a  good  electioneer,  and  is  said 
to  have  owed  his  success  to  his  seven  handsome 
sons,  who  canvassed  for  him.  Mrs.  Ellenor,  in  one 
of  her  letters,  alludes  jokingly  to  the  havoc  made 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  287 


by  “  the  kill-heart  youths,”  as  she  styles  them. 
According  to  her,  a  young  lady  who  had  been 
disappointed  of  dancing  with  one  of  them  could 
not  eat  or  sleep  for  mortification.  A  story  has  long 
been  handed  down  in  the  family  that  one  of  these 
young  men  in  his  rounds  called  upon  a  proud  mother 
and  insisted  upon  taking  her  infant  in  his  arms. 
After  dandling  it  for  a  few  minutes  he  thought  that 
he  had  done  enough  for  his  father’s  cause,  and  put 
it  down  with  a  careless  “  Run  away  to  mother !  ” 
whereupon  the  luckless  baby,  being  only  in  long 
clothes,  fell  flat  upon  its  face. 

The  election  was  over  and  the  news  of  victory 
sent  to  Mrs.  Ellenor,  who  had  been  most  active 
in  rendering  what  services  she  could.  Perhaps  she 
thought  of  the  time,  long  ago,  when  one  of  those 
cousins  who  was  with  her  on  board  the  “Yatch” 
was  engaged  in  electioneering,  and  wrote  to  her 
to  complain  of  the  general  dislike  to  “  a  certain 
illustrious  house  that  shall  be  nameless.”  Sixty 
years  had  passed,  and  the  danger  was  not  from 
Jacobites,  but  from  Jacobins. 

Her  delight  was  genuine  and  unrestrained.  “  Dear 
Niece,”  she  wrote  to  Lady  Fenn,“my  hand  shakes 
— not  from  liquor,  but  from  inward  Joy.  The 
civilities  and  congratulatory  Compliments  sent  to 
me  near  home,  and  the  country  round  make  me 
almost  fancy  myself  a  person  of  some  consequence, 
but  my  own  failings  of  abilities  in  body  and  mind 
say  as  friends  ‘  Know  thyself,  and  be  not  lifted  up, 


288 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


and  be  thankful  for  the  poor  remains,  knowing  they 
are  more  than  thousands  share  more  deserving’ 

o 

Pray  say  for  me  to  Mr.  Frere,  &c,  &c,  all  what  I 
would  wish  to  say  upon  merit's  reward.  Do  pray 
be  a  Moses  and  Aaron,  for  to  you,  tis  given.  Shine 
for  me  now,  and  I’ll  say  ‘My  dear,  I  thank  you.’ 
I  really  for  more  than  a  week  have  lived  in  such 
a  worry  from  messages,  sending  miles  about  where 
I  could  be  of  any  service  to  the  cause  (Mr.  Wiseman 
being  the  orderer),  that  I  am  even  upon  that  account 
not  sorry  that  all  is  over — all  well — all  in  safety. 
My  fears  in  those  respects  were  very  great  indeed. 
Thank  God  for  all  His  mercies  to  the  Frere  family, 
He  has  ever  dealt  with  a  liberal  hand,  who  can  deny 
it  ?  Mr.  Wiseman’s  anxiety,  continual  head  work, 
tail-bumping,  treating,  &c,  &c,  exceeds  my  powers 
of  description.  He  came  to  comfort  me  almost 
daily ;  I  adore  him.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Wiseman  too  has 
been  so  civil  to  me  that  it  is  marvellous  in  my  eyes. 

“.  .  .  James  coming  from  Norwich  the  moment 
all  was  given  up  by  Mr.  Fellows,  set  off  for  to  bring 
me  word,  came  all  alone,  and  had  he  not  been 
mounted  on  a  tall  able  horse  I  suppose  would  have 
been  beaten  to  death.  He  rode  through  near  a 
hundred  of  the  blue  rabble,  they  pelting  him  with 
great  stones,  bricks’  ends,  mire,  and  lumps  of  wetted 
clay,  got  across  the  road  with  bludgeons  in  their 
hands  crying  out  ‘  Stop  him !  Down  him  !  Kill 
him !  ’  But  he  rode  for  life ,  and  never  in  his  life 
was  so  frightened  before. 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  289 


“  I  set  up  the  bells  directly,  and  they  were  rung 
till  near  12,  and  most  of  yesterday,  though  I  paid 
them  off  and  begged  to  have  them  save  their 
money,  for  I  really  am  so  deaf  now  again  that  I 
could  not  hear  them.” 

Near  Mrs.  Ellenor’s  house  was  a  boys’  school, 
with  the  inmates  of  which  she  had  previously  had 
a  quarrel.  As  far  as  can  be  traced  from  allusions 
in  one  of  her  letters,  the  boys  were  in  the  habit 
of  disturbing  her  by  making  a  noise  in  their  play¬ 
ground  at  unseasonable  hours,  and  by  keeping 
rabbits.  The  annoyance  reached  such  a  pitch  that 
her  nephew  was  obliged  to  interfere.  The  parents 
of  some  of  the  worst  offenders  were  summoned,  one 
boy  left  the  school,  the  rest  were  severely  repri¬ 
manded,  and  the  rabbits  were  sentenced  to  death 
or  banishment  from  the  premises.  But  all  unkind¬ 
nesses  were  now  forgotten,  and  the  boys  might  make 
as  much  noise  as  they  pleased,  in  the  security  that 
Mrs.  Ellenor  would  enjoy  it. 

“  The  20  boy  neighbours  hollow’d  the  whole  day, 
so  I  went  down  to  Diss  and  bought  3  or  4  pounds 
of  sugar  cakes  and  gingerbread,  had  them  all  come 
in  with  the  housekeeper  and  the  usher  (some  of  them 
being  quite  babes)  so  they  fill’d  the  hall  after  5 
o’clock.  I  step’d  just  in,  and  made  my  speech,  tho’ 
I  could  not  hear  their  answers.  When  they  had 
eaten  to  content,  James  and  George  gave  them  two 
glasses  of  wine  apiece” — a  liberal  allowance  for 
“  babes.”  “  Then  they  shouted  thanks,  went  into 

19 


290 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


the  fore  court,  took  hands  in  a  ring,  pul’d  of  their 
hats,  and  exalt  ’em  in  the  air,  [and]  shouted  3  times 
to  admiration.” 

Nor  was  this  all  the  pleasure  in  store  for  her. 
“Next  Saturday  Mr.  Frere’s  Company  from  Diss, 
Mr.  Wiseman  tells  me,  shall  all  come  and  give 
me  a  great  firing,  so  I  have  sent  for  the  Cask  of 
Nog  and  cakes,  as  when  you  saw  the  entertainment. 
I  expect  Miss  Riches  here  presently.  Mrs.  Malkin 
yesterday,  Mr.  and  Miss  Isaacson  to-morrow — &c — 
&c— in  short,  I  wish  for  no  more,  as  I  hear  so  bad, 
only  I  am  assured  that  your  brother  and  my-long- 
wished-for-to-see  Welsh  Edward  *  call  upon  me 
in  their  way  to  Ipswich  ;  it  fills  my  heart  with  joy. 
.  .  .  Miss  F.  and  Miss  B.  this  moment  come  in, 
and  50  purple  and  oranges  passing  my  window — 
continual  calls  from  every  quarter — worries  me.” 
So  ends  the  happy  but  distracted  aunt. 

Persons  of  extreme  views  would  hardly  approve 
of  the  old  lady’s  expedition  to  church  next  Sunday 
with  a  large  purple  and  orange  cockade  pinned 
over  her  heart,  to  receive  the  congratulations  of 
the  congregation  ;  but  it  was  a  joy  to  her  almost 
as  great  as  the  visit  from  the  “  sweet  youths,”  her 
great-nephews,  or  the  performance  of  the  Diss 
volunteers  on  her  lawn.  Their  music,  having  a 
liberal  accompaniment  from  the  big  drum,  was 
audible  to  her,  and  made  her,  as  she  declared,  feel 

*  John  Frere’s  second  son,  afterwards  the  father  of  Sir 
Bartle  Frere. 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  291 


quite  young  again,  although  she  was  but  a  “  withered 
stump.”  The  cakes  were  handed  round,  an  admiring 
crowd  assembled,  the  “Nog”  (strong  Norfolk  ale) 
was  broached,  and  the  heads  of  the  band  probably 
buzzed  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

The  last  year  of  Mrs.  Ellenor’s  life  was  one  of 
failing  strength  and  abilities,  brightened  by  the  love 
of  those  about  her.  She  declined  to  make  new 
acquaintances,  but  old  friends  and  relatives  of  all 
ages  were  sure  of  a  welcome  at  Palgrave.  How 
valued  by  her  was  the  affection  of  the  rising 
generation  is  shown  over  and  over  again  in  her 
letters.  To  her  nephew  John’s  wife  she  writes: 
“  If  I  may  measure  your  affection  by  the  attention 
ever  shew’d  to  me  present  and  absent — to  borrow 
your  own  expression,  ‘  it  would  be  even  as  great 
as  I  could  wish  it.’  Permit  me  to  indulge  the 
pleasing  dream,  and  till  I  am  awaked  by  unwished 
for  real  lessons  to  convince  me  that  it  is  only 
imagination  and  vanity,  I  will  doze  on — love,  and 
think  that  I  am  beloved.”  She  then  repays  the 
anxiety  of  her  nephew  for  her  health  by  a  little 
good  advice  about  his  own  : 

“  To  take  more  morning  sleep  in  bed — and  less 
when  up  ;  to  take  short  walks ;  and  not  long  rides 
or  strong  exercise  ;  not  to  involve  himself  so  much 
in  other  people’s  affairs,  but  keep  his  mind  less 
harassed,  which  I  earnestly  recommend  ;  and  as 
earnestly  request  that  he  will  never  (these  knock¬ 
down  days)  walk  the  streets  when  dark  without 


292 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


a  servant  at  his  heels,  not  for  state,  but  for  safety. 
And  now,  my  dear,  I  hear  yore  say  ‘  Thankey,  Aunt,’ 
and  hear  him  pish,  &c.  And  now  he  may  hear  me 
say  ‘  Aye,  scold  on  if  you  will,  and  if  you  swear, 
I  am  out  of  the  reach  of  feeling  your  resentment, 
and  if  you  were  near,  I  could  not  hear  you.’  And 
if  you  say  ‘  What  do  [sic]  this  babbler  mean  ?  ’ 
I’ll  say  ‘Sir,  I’ll  add  one  more  ingredient  for  the 
benefit  of  your  health — drink  daily  a  little  port 
and  less  water — remember  you  are  on  the  confines 
of  53.” 

Her  letters  to  her  nephews  and  great-nephews 
are  full  of  such  affectionate  banter  :  “Your  begging 
paper  has  not  yet  been  read,  and  when  it  is,  you 
know  I  |am  deaf  in  both  ears,  and  should  I  give  a 
tiny  piece  of  yellow  money,  ’twill  be  more  out  of 
pride  than  charity.”  Another  is  derided  for  having 
fallen  off  his  horse  into  the  mire  on  his  way  between 
Roydon  and  Palgrave.  In  her  great- nieces  she  took 
less  interest ;  she  was  sorry  to  hear  that  the  married 
one  was  so  poor  a  creature  as  “  to  feel  from  wind  and 
changes  of  weather”  so  early  in  life,  and  the  other  is 
scarcely  mentioned.  “  Nell  ”  had  evidently  preferred 
the  society  of  the  opposite  sex,  and  age  had  not 
changed  Mrs.  Ellenor  in  this  respect. 

There  is  a  blurred  letter  in  a  very  shaky  hand, 
giving  “  my  dear  nephew  ”  “  ten  thousand  thanks 
for  an  unexpected  congratulation  on  the  arrival  of 
my  88th  year  ;  it  came  from  the  heart,  I  verily 
believe,  of  an  affectionate  nephew,  so  consequently 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  293 


gave  pleasure  to  an  affectionate  old  aunt.”  She  was 
anxious  for  the  safety  of  his  son,  who  had  just  been 
sent  to  the  Peninsula  on  a  diplomatic  mission  :  “  Let 

me  1st  ask  where  is  J.  H.  F.  ?  Day  and  night 
he  is  in  my  dreams  and  thoughts  ;  where  is  he  ? 
Not  on  the  water,  I  hope,  these  alarming  winds. 
Time  was  when  Jimmy  over  the  water  was  always 
drunk  ;  I  wish  that  now  I  could  drink  J.  H.  F.  over 
the  water  in  safety.” 

A  little  while  later  John  Frere  writes  to  this  son 
in  Lisbon  to  announce  the  death  of  “  my  old  aunt,” 
the  somewhat  complicated  arrangements  of  whose 
will  did  not  give  him  entire  satisfaction. 

So  ends  her  story — and  it  is  not  very  much  of  a 
story,  after  all.  Her  name  was  unknown  beyond  her 
own  neighbourhood  ;  she  enjoyed  her  books  without 
attempting  to  dabble  in  literature,  and  relieved 
the  poor  in  the  seasons  of  distress  occasioned  by  the 
great  war,  without  a  thought  of  coming  before 
the  public  as  a  philanthropist.  She  stayed  at  home, 
wrought  much,  loved  much — and  there  is  the  end. 
She  had  neither  career  nor  mission  ;  perhaps  she 
was  not  even  conscious  of  “  holding  views,”  although 
she  had  at  all  times  the  courage  of  her  opinions. 
She  lived  in  days  when  neither  the  learning  of  Mrs. 
Carter  nor  the  piety  of  Mrs.  More  could  quite  efface 
the  reproach  of  spinsterhood  ;  yet  there  is  nothing 
to  show  that  she  pitied  herself  or  ever  felt  herself  to 
be  otherwise  than  useful,  happy,  and  beloved. 


294  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

From  the  aunt  we  may  now  turn  to  say  a  few 
words  of  her  niece  and  namesake — the  “  dear  Lady 
Fenn,”  to  whom  most  of  her  letters  are  addressed. 
The  second  Ellenor  Frere  was  born  in  1744.  There 
is  little  known  of  her  in  youth,  except  that  she  was 
always  “  of  strong  original  understanding  and  great 
accomplishment.”  She  married  a  neighbour,  John 
Fenn,  the  antiquary,  who  has  acquired  celebrity 
as  the  first  editor  of  the  Paston  letters.  It  is  much 
to  be  hoped  that  various  autobiographical  fragments 
left  by  this  gentleman,  and  now  in  the  hands  of 
different  possessors,  may  be  some  day  given  to  the 
world  ;  they  give  an  amusing  picture  of  an  excellent 
but  priggish  worthy  who  never,  even  in  the  heyday 
of  youth,  was  guilty  of  the  least  dereliction  from  the 
path  of  strict  virtue  and  unexceptionable  deportment. 
His  amusement  as  a  small  child  was  to  colour  the 
shields  of  arms  in  a  copy  of  Gwillym’s  Heraldry 
according  to  the  rules  ;  and  he  kept  a  strict  account 
of  all  his  expenses  at  school  and  college,  even 
including  sixpence  for  an  emetic — entered  by  him 
under  its  old-fashioned  title  of  a  “vomit.” 

Mrs.  Ellenor  Frere  was  evidently  held  in  much 
esteem  by  the  Fenns.  When  Sir  John  received  the 
honour  of  knighthood  from  George  III.  he  wrote  to 
announce  it  to  his  wife’s  aunt  before  sending  the 
news  to  his  wife.  Either  on  this  occasion  or  on 
another,  Sir  John  presented  the  king  with  two 
volumes  of  the  originals  of  the  Paston  letters.  For 
many  years  they  were  not  to  be  found  in  the  library 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  295 


at  Windsor,  and  it  was  even  hinted  by  sceptics  that 
these  celebrated  documents  were  a  forgery,  and  that 
their  disappearance  was  convenient.  However,  some 
years  ago  they  suddenly  came  to  light — sad  to  say, 
in  an  episcopal  library. 

When  Sir  John  died,  Mrs.  Ellenor  pasted  his 
obituary  notice  in  the  little  book  which  she  reserved 
for  such  tributes  to  really  valued  kinsmen  and 
friends  by  way  of  showing  her  esteem,  and  Lady 
Fenn  gave  herself  up  to  good  works.  Having  no 
children  of  her  own,  she  naturally  considered  that 
she  was  peculiarly  qualified  to  instruct  those  of  other 
people,  and  she  soon  set  to  work  to  provide  them 
with  instruction  and  amusement.  There  was  a  great 
need  of  children’s  books  in  her  time  ;  we  have  gone 
to  the  other  extreme,  and  those  who  know  the  floods 
of  sugared  milk  and  water  which  are  poured  forth 
for  the  rising  generation  every  Christmas  may  not 
realise  what  very  unwholesome  diet  was  provided 
for  their  predecessors  until  a  few  good  women  took 
the  matter  in  hand.  For  instance,  the  very  parti¬ 
cular  mother  in  Miss  Edgeworth’s  Mademoiselle 
Panache ,  although  she  hesitates  to  let  her  little  girls 
read  Gil  Bias,  acknowledges  that  it  is  commonly  given 
to  young  children  who  are  learning  French.  Female 
authorship  was  then  so  terrible  a  thing  that  some  of 
the  most  successful  writers  for  children  dared  not 
reveal  their  names.  Miss  Dorothy  Kilner,  to  whom 
we  owe  so  many  excellent  stories — Jemima  Placid, 
The  History  of  a  Pincushion,  The  Village  School, 


296 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


and  others — wrote  to  her  dying  day  as  “  Mary 
Pelham  ”  ;  Lady  Fenn  was  “  Mrs.  Lovechild  ”  or 
“Mrs.  Teachwell.”  Her  little  books  were  first 
written  for  ner  brother’s  family  at  Roydon,  and  the 
little  masters  and  misses  who  appear  in  them  bear 
the  names  of  the  little  Freres.  An  old  gardener  well 
remembered  seeing  her  sitting  on  the  lawn  at  five 
o’clock  on  a  summer  morning,  her  portfolio  on  her 
knee,  carefully  printing  the  words,  letter  by  letter, 
with  her  pen,  for  the  sake  of  the  children  who 
were  not  old  enough  to  .read  written  characters. 
She  then  bound  the  tiny  volumes  in  gaily  coloured 
paper. 

Her  greatest  achievement  was  the  Cobwebs  to 
Catch  Flies — a  progressive  reading-book,  containing 
not  detached  words  and  sentences,  but  real  stories, 
in  words  first  of  three  letters,  then  of  four,  and  then 
of  five.  It  outlived  her  time  as  an  educational  work, 
and  went  through  many  editions  until  it  was  quite 
modernised  in  appearance,  the  long  /  being  replaced 
by  “s,”  and  the  old-fashioned  cuts  exchanged  for 
other  and  less  interesting  pictures.  The  chief  point 
that  impresses  itself  upon  an  adult  reader  of  to¬ 
day  is  that  the  children  incessantly  exclaim  “  O 
me !  ”  whether  as  a  genteel  variant  of  “  Oh  my !  ” 
or  because  it  was  difficult  to  find  an  ejaculation 
with  the  requisite  number  of  letters. 

With  all  her  affection  for  children  Lady  Fenn 
was  a  stern  disciplinarian.  “  My  great-niece  would 
be  a  delightful  little  creature  indeed,”  says  one  of 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  297 


her  letters,  “  if  she  were  not  suffered  to  utter  im¬ 
patient  shrieks — of  which  she  might  soon  be  cured  — 
she  never  did  it  with  me — and  we  passed  pleasant 
hours  tete-a-tete  before  breakfast.” 

She  had  a  great  reputation  for  intellect.  Some 
remarks  of  hers  upon  The  Castle  of  Otranto 
brought  her  a  letter  from  Horace  Walpole,  a  copy 
of  which  is  among  her  papers.  The  first  part  is 
written  in  an  unformed  childish  hand,  as  neat  and 
clear  as  print,  between  margins  ruled  in  pencil,  as 
if  one  of  her  little  pupils  had  been  trusted  to  copy 
it.  Would  that  the  education  which  is  now  becoming 
a  universal  gene  taught  our  young  people  to  write 
half  as  well  !  But  the  greatest  tribute  to  her  talents 
was  rendered  by  a  boy  of  her  own  village  of  East 
Dereham,  who  thus  explained  to  his  playmates  the 
dangers  of  an  invasion  from  Buonaparte :  “  I  tell 
ye,  ye  don’t  know  what  a  terrible  fellow  he  is  ;  why, 
he  don’t  care  for  nobody.  If  he  was  to  come  here 
to  Dereham  he  wouldn’t  care  that”  (with  a  snap  of 
his  fingers),  “  no  !  not  even  for  Lady  Fenn  there.” 

Mrs.  Ellenor  sincerely  admired  her  niece’s  clever¬ 
ness,  but  could  not  help  being  a  little  pleased  when 
Lady  Fenn  was  more  alarmed  than  herself  at  the 
prospect  of  a  French  landing.  Dereham  was  near 
the  coast,  and  therefore  more  liable  to  attack  than 
Palgrave,  and  poor  Lady  Fenn  confessed  that  she 
could  do  nothing  “  without  reflecting  upon  Invasion.” 
She  even  brought  away  two  pictures  from  her  house, 
in  case  “  the  Monster  ”  should  burn  it,  although  at 


298  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

the  same  time  she  declared,  “  I  do  not  disquiet 
myself  with  apprehension.” 

An  even  more  terrible  danger  to  England  than 
Napoleon’s  forces — although  comparatively  few  were 
able  to  realise  it — was  the  condition  of  the  lower 
classes  in  the  rural  districts  towards  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Untaught,  neglected  by  squire 
and  parson,  if  there  were  either  in  the  neighbourhood  ; 
ground  down  by  the  farmers,  who  opposed  every 
attempt  at  reform  for  fear  it  should  increase  the 
rates — in  many  places  they  were  no  better  than 
savages.  The  Church,  under  the  fostering  care  of 
a  succession  of  monarchs  whose  only  qualification  to 
reign  was  their  nominal  adherence  to  a  Protestant 
form  of  belief,  made  no  effort  to  rescue  the  souls  in 
her  charge.  Speaking  generally,  the  only  missionary 
work  was  done  by  the  Wesleyans.  Here  and  there 
such  an  exemplary  clergyman  as  that  depicted  in 
Miss  Kilner’s  Village  School ,  who  walked  about 
his  parish  in  gown  and  bands,  and  allowed  good 
children  to  play  in  his  field,  might  produce  a  different 
state  of  things ;  but  those  who  wish  to  know  the 
utter  darkness,  spiritual  and  mental,  in  which  the 
labouring  classes  lived  and  died  under  “  good  King 
George,”  may  turn  to  Hannah  More’s  account  of 
hei;  own  and  her  sisters’  labours  at  Cheddar  and 
among  the  Mendip  Hills.  In  1790  Somersetshire 
farmers  would  not  hear  of  a  resident  clergyman,  for 
fear  that  the  tithes  should  be  raised,  and  because 
“  the  country  had  never  prospered  since  religion 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  299 


was  brought  in  by  the  monks  of  Glastonbury.” 
Somersetshire  villagers  believed  that  so  many  years’ 
attendance  at  the  schools  would  give  “  the  ladies  ” 
a  right  to  sell  their  children  for  slaves.  The  only 
Bible  in  one  parish  was  used  to  prop  a  flower-pot. 
In  another  place,  not  one  out  of  one  hundred  and 
eight  children  could  tell  who  made  them.  The  sick 
were  left  unvisited  by  the  clergy,  and  the  dead 
were  often  buried  without  a  service. 

If  it  be  objected  that  these  remote  parts  of 
Somersetshire  were  hardly  fair  examples  to  take, 
what  can  be  said  for  Brentford,  near  Ealing,  where 
Mrs.  Trimmer  at  this  time  was  attempting  to  set 
up  Sunday-schools  ?  “  The  children  ran  about 

from  morning  to  night,  ragged,  dirty,  and  regular 
pests  to  all  the  inhabitants.”  Of  religious  knowledge 
there  was  not  a  vestige,  although  the  boys  could 
generally  read.  Petty  robberies  and  thefts  were 
perpetually  committed,  and  horrible  cruelty  to 
animals  was  so  universal  a  characteristic  that  one 
of  Mrs.  Trimmer’s  first  proceedings  was  to  write  a 
story  inveighing  against  it,  in  the  method  beloved 
of  Mr.  Barlow,  who  had  always  a  “  short  anec¬ 
dote  ”  to  point  out  the  disadvantages  of  every  bad 
habit. 

As  has  been  the  case  with  nearly  every  social  or 
religious  reform,  the  good  work  was  first  under¬ 
taken  by  a  few  who  were  under  no  obligation  to 
do  anything  at  all,  and  might  well  have  left  the 
matter  alone  without  incurring  any  reproach.  The 


3°o  UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 

horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  while  they  made 
thoughtful  persons  anxious  to  do  something  for  the 
improvement  of  the  lower  classes,  had  inspired  the 
majority  with  the  idea  that  the  people  must  be 
“  kept  down.”  On  the  one  hand  the  workers  were 
accused  of  being  “  Methodists  ” ;  on  the  other,  of 
being  “  Jacobins.”  So  intolerable  was  the  persecu¬ 
tion  of  the  Mores  that  it  drove  them  from  their 
house  at  Cowslip  Green. 

Lady  Fenn,  living  in  a  neighbourhood  where  she 
and  her  family  had  been  well  known  for  many  years, 
was  apparently  unhurt  by  such  annoyances,  her 
chief  cause  of  complaint  being  the  selfish  apathy 
of  the  richer  classes.  Incited  thereto  by  Mrs. 
Trimmer’s  little  book,  The  Economy  of  Charity,  which 
showed  how  industrial  work  might  be  started  in 
schools,  Lady  Fenn  tried  to  do  something  for  the 
education  of  the  Dereham  children.  There  were 
already  Sunday-schools  established  in  the  village, 
which  gave  her  the  opportunity  of  knowing  the 
children  individually.  Her  desire  was  to  stir  up 
“  a  spirit  of  industry  and  neatness  among  the  girls,” 
but  she  found  great  difficulty  in  procuring  any  em¬ 
ployment  for  them  that  could  be  made  profitable. 
At  last  she  introduced  a  new  industry — the  spinning 
of  tow,  which  prospered,  although  it  was  hampered 
in  the  beginning  by  the  large  “  plant  ”  required. 
Some  of  her  friends  were  very  good  in  offering 
subscriptions,  which  she  would  not  directly  ask, 
although  she  took  care  to  make  her  scheme  generally 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  301 


known  ;  others  discouraged  her  efforts,  from  a  fear 
that  if  women  were  taught  to  earn  a  maintenance 
in  any  way  but  by  domestic  service,  the  supply  of 
maidservants  would  fail. 

A  school  where  the  girls  were  taught  to  mend 
and  patch  clothes  was  another  most  useful  institu¬ 
tion.  Here  the  besetting  difficulty  was  the  scarcity 
of  materials.  “  Were  I  in  London  with  all  my 
Country  activity  about  me,”  wrote  Lady  Fenn  to 
a  cousin,  “  I  would  ransack  every  little  shop  for 
fags  and  remnants — apply  to  every  mantua-maker 
for  snips.” 

By  way  of  example,  Lady  Fenn  learned  to  spin, 
and  was  soon  wishing  that  her  “  diamond  earrings 
were  transformed — one  into  a  nice  upright  parlour- 
wheel — and  one  into  a  Toy -wheel  to  set  on  a  table.” 
In  defiance  of  political  economy,  she  was  anxious 
to  earn  funds  for  her  charitable  schemes  by  her  own 
exertions,  and  lamented  that  “  I  have  yet  no  leisure 
to  earn  myself — being  so  engaged  in  stimulating 
others  to  do  it — making  estimates  of  earnings  and 
savings — and  instigating  poor  persons  to  purchase 
clothes  and  linen,  rather  than  to  lay  out  every  thing 
in  food  and  drink.”  It  was  far  better  for  her  to 
be  employed  in  this  way,  could  she  but  have  thought 
it  ;  but  the  fashion  of  intercepting  some  of  Peter’s 
just  profits  in  order  to  relieve  the  necessities  of 
Paul  is  always  dear  to  the  feminine  heart,  and  has 
not  yet  been  abolished  by  higher  education. 

She  was  on  the  watch  for  new  openings.  “  I 


3°2 


UNSTORIED  IN  HISTORY. 


would  give  anything  to  have  been  in  Scotland  with 
a  lady  whom  I  met  the  other  day,  She  had  learned 
the  whole  process  of  linen  manufactory  [sic]  ;  it 
would  now  be  of  infinite  use  to  me,  as  I  will  not 
relinquish  the  hope  that  the  gentlemen  may  adopt 
this  scheme  in  time,  and  carry  it  on,  on  a  more 
extensive  plan.  I  want  a  pleasing  agreeable  woman 
— who  can  speak  fluently  and  well — to  harangue 
on  the  benefit  of  employment  for  the  poor.” 

In  such  schemes  for  the  general  benefit  Lady 
Fenn  passed  her  long  and  useful  life,  dying  in  1813. 
George  Borrow  describes  how,  in  his  childhood, 
he  used  to  see  her  awesome  figure  stalking  through 
East  Dereham  on  charitable  errands,  with  her 
footman  in  attendance.  She  might  have  walked 
straight  out  of  the  pages  of  one  of  the  story-books 
of  the  period. 

On  the  whole  she  is  less  lovable  and  a  less 
interesting  figure  than  her  aunt.  We  seek  vainly 
in  her  letters  for  the  raciness  and  geniality  abounding 
in  those  of  Mrs.  Ellenor ;  she  is  more  didactic, 
and  fully  conscious  of  setting  a  good  example 
to  those  about  her.  But  she  did  good  work  in  a 
quiet,  unobtrusive  way,  and  was  greatly  missed 
by  high  and  low  when  she  died.  Cobwebs  to 
Catch .  Flies  are  now  as  obsolete  as  the  spinning- 
wheel  itself,  and  the  elaborate  Game  of  Grammar , 
which  was  supposed  to  be  her  masterpiece  in  the 
way  of  combining  instruction  with  amusement, 
would  be  utterly  scouted  by  the  rising  generation. 


A  SPINSTER  AND  A  LADY  BOUNTIFUL.  3°3 


But  the  good  work  done  by  the  devoted  few,  who 
gave  up  ease  and  luxury  and  braved  the  opinion 
of  the  world  for  the  sake  of  those  who  could  never 
repay  them  in  any  way,  has  grown  and  extended 
farther  than  they  can  have  imagined  in  their  most 
hopeful  dreams. 


CONCLUSION. 


ERE  “samples  of  womankind”  are  they  all  ; 


1V1  “but  here  they  be.”  It  may  be  objected 
that  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  the  Pitt  family  there 
is  little  feminine  interest,  Governor  Pitt’s  strongly 
marked  personality  completely  eclipsing  those  of  his 
wife  and  daughter-in-law.  The  excuse  is  that  he 
was  intended  to  give  an  example  of  what  a  woman 
occasionally  has  to  endure  from  husband  or  father 
and  may  succeed  in  bearing  with  an  unruffled  spirit, 
if  she  be  endowed  with  tact,  patience,  and  a  sense  of 
humour.  Mrs.  Pitt  had  none  of  these  qualities,  and 
thus  it  was  that  both  lives  were  marred.  Moreover, 
as  Sir  John  Bankes  and  Sir  Robert  Harley — both 
men  of  mark — have  been  of  necessity  cast  into  the 
shade  by  the  far  more  interesting  figures  of  their 
wives,  it  is  only  fair  that  one  husband  should  have 
his  turn.  Lastly,  it  may  be  urged  that  Governor 
Pitt  had  to  be  introduced,  like  “  the  mock-bird  ”  in 
Mrs.  Trimmer’s  Story  of  the  Robins ,  “for  the  sake 
of  the  moral.”  * 

*  "  The  mock-bird  is  properly  a  native  of  America,  but  is 
introduced  here  [in  an  English  orchard]  for  the  sake  of  the 
moral.” 


3°S 


20 


3°6 


CONCLUSION. 


There  was  nothing  exceptional  about  any  of  the 
women  whose  stories  have  now  been  told ;  even 
Elizabeth  Fitzgerald’s  retort  to  the  flag  of  truce  may 
find  its  equivalent  in  history.  All  of  us  have  known 
women  as  exasperating  as  Elizabeth,  Countess  of 
Rutland,  as  pleasure-loving  as  Bridget  Noel,  as 
superior  as  Lady  Fenn,  as  courageous  and  as  re¬ 
sourceful  as  Lady  Savile  or  Lady  Bankes.  Although 
the  shrewd,  racy  old  gentlewoman  who  delighted  the 
youth  of  our  grandfathers  is  now  almost  an  extinct 
type,  here  and  there  lingers  a  survivor  whose  con¬ 
versation  has  a  flavour  that  recalls  Mrs.  Ellenor 
Frere.  The  Brilliana  Harley  of  to-day  does  not  hold 
her  castle  against  an  armed  foe  ;  but  she  still  has  to 
see  those  whom  she  loves  more  than  her  life  go  forth 
to  battle,  and,  “stirring  up  her  womanish  thoughts 
with  a  manly  stomach,”  must  give  them  heart  for 
their  conflict. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  then,  these  are  examples  of 
the  average  woman — nothing  more  and  nothing  less. 
The  least  insignificant  among  them  have  obtained  a 
few  lines  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  ; 
the  rest  are  altogether  unremembered.  Their 
circumstances  were  those  of  their  times,  and  in  no 
way  peculiar  to  themselves.  In  one  sense,  this 
makes  their  lives  less  interesting.  Of  exceptional 
women  who  were  separated  from  the  common  herd 
by  character,  position,  and  destiny — such  as  Margaret 
of  Denmark,  Joan  of  Arc,  or  Hedwig  of  Poland — we 
can  never  be  weary  ;  they  stand  out  above  and 


CONCLUSION. 


3°  7 


away  from  their  contemporaries,  and  have  left  traces 
behind  them  that  have  lasted  until  our  time,  and 
will  last  long  after  we  have  joined  the  majority. 
These  others  were  everyday  characters.  But  per¬ 
haps,  also,  it  may  be  in  their  favour  that  they  were 
so  very  like  ourselves.  Their  troubles  and  joys 
were  substantially  the  same  as  our  own  ;  some  of 
us  would  have  failed  just  as  some  of  them  failed, 
or  conquered  as  they  conquered.  If  we  cannot  be 
thrilled  or  awed,  we  can  more  readily  sympathise. 


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